when a man says he hears angels singing...(1/ 30)

he hears angels singing.

We were in the car bound for a day on the water.  On my last rounds through the house to make sure we had everything, I grabbed Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings.  It was an urge I simply couldn't resist despite the fact that I had two other books in my bag.  I started to read the poems chronologically cover to cover as soon as we hit the road.  I love to do this and am always reassured by the way the same lines and poems speak to me every time no matter the order in which I intake them.  I had just read and reread Blake Dying. I always get stuck on the lines that read:

When death is about to happen
does the body grow heavier or lighter?

No matter how many times I read those lines I need to stop, sit with them and mull them over.  These are the kinds of thoughts that keep me up at night.

My phone rang.  It was Jess.  Jess who had called earlier to tell me that her close friend's husband, her friend too, had been in an accident.  An accident on a  4-wheeler.  Facebook told her he needed prayers, but she finally received direct word that nothing short of a miracle was going to save him.

It's a tragedy in every way.  A thousand ways or more.  A young husband, father of one soon to be two, a son, brother and friend plucked so painfully from his life on a perfect July night.  I doubt he had the opportunity to ponder whether he was light as a feather or heavy with the weight of what his loss would mean to his world.

All day I watched the people on the beach around me with suspicious eyes.  They were laughing and smiling and merrymaking.  There were two precious brand new babies being passed around a large group gathered for a life celebration, and I couldn't stop thinking about this friend of a friend who would never know his daughter.  This daughter who will never know her father.  How?  Why?

When?

I wasn't begrudging them their moments.  Sometimes that's all we have.  Sometimes that's all it takes.  I was simply praying that they know how precious the moments are.