Originally posted by angelsgmaw:
In the short space since the first of the year I have attended 8 funerals. I don't remember when I have ever had so many funerals, even when I was a preacher's wife. Vicki, you captured the feeling of loss, the empty void left by someone leaving too soon, but also the wonderous memories of all the lifetime of knowing and loving someone. For someone as young as you to realize that death is loss of life but not loss of loving and to be able to express it like you did makes me smile. What a tribute to anyone! To be able to sum up a life and leave the reader smiling in a sad time is a gift.
Thanks!
Pat
Pat, thank you so much.
Sounds like you've had a tough start to the year, and I'm sorry that you've had to attend so many funerals.
I'll admit to cheating a *tiny* bit when I wrote this. I just sort of draw from my own experiences. My dad's mom passed in 2005 from pancreatic cancer. It was 10 days from her admission into the hospital, getting a diagnosis, and the time that she passed away. Up until then she'd been healthy as a horse. And the sitting vigil in the hospital when Perry goes critical was taken from my mom and sister doing the same thing when my mom's mom passed in 2009. (I wasn't there, but they were).
All things considered, this story wrote itself over only two or three days. It was pretty easy for me to slip inside of Clark's head and feel his pain, in watching a loved one leave.
I'm glad that it left you smiling at the end. I think, even when we are at our saddest in saying goodbye, there is always a part of us that can smile even then when we think about the person.
Thanks again for the feedback, and I hope to see you around IRC soon.
