A Whole Lot of Grief Coming (published Enterprise Record

There is a whole lot of grief coming. My father raised six of us kids, four girls, two boys. All of them reproducing except me (though I picked up a couple of nice strays). I was dad's first born, and in all the time since, not a single one of his dozens of live birth descendants has died. Not one! And the babies of babies have for a while now been having babies. Now numbering in the dozens, I live far from all of them, and yet they are so much me. At my age many of my dear peers are leaving. This week there were two memorials. I attended neither, nor shall I again, nor desire one for myself. I cannot mark role-call – even in celebration. In me there are no absences, and we together have yet so much to do! I look around at a planet that has been estranged by our own handiwork. Fully three-fourths of the damage to atmosphere has occurred in my 70 years. So much of the life we have made must be turned on its head and rebuilt. The challenges and obstacles are great and time short. My inspiration comes, in part, from a girl-child with a disability, and those like her. There is grief to come, but a whole lot of work to do. So there is a whole lot of that – too. In a way, grief and the grief to come– and the work to be done - balances.