Celtic Odyssey

This afternoon our family went to a memorial service for the brother of a very dear friend. This was more of a wake than a traditional service. There was laughing and crying. Music and dancing. There was food and, yes, there was drinking. I mean, it’s not a proper wake without that last bit. As we sat and listened to the stories close friends and family told of the loved one who passed through the thin veil to the Otherworld, I marveled at this young life. I had only met him a couple of times and never really knew him that well. Our conversations were brief but he had this presence about him. No matter what he was doing, I noticed he would stop and look people directly in the eye when speaking with them. His eyes weren ’ t darting to and fro looking around the other person to the distractions of other people passing by; he looked intently at the one he was talking with. It was like the rest of the world just stopped. For him, and the person talking with him, they were the only on...

This past week, I’ve had several people close to me suffer the loss of a loved one. One person lost her mother-in-law. Another lost a child. And two others lost their spouses. Of course, when death happens, we really begin to see things differently, don’t we? For some reason that I can’t explain, though, I’ve really been touched by it this time. This go ‘round, I’ve seen the emptiness of our lives, as well as the fulness. What I mean by “emptiness” is the little, petty arguments and irritations that seem to take up so much of our time together. We get irritated at one another over the littlest things — dirty dishes in the sink or on the counter, squeezing the toothpaste in the middle instead of the end (or visa versa), being awakened after finally getting to sleep by a seemingly silly question, putting the toilet paper on the “wrong” way, interrupted while doing our favorite activity, etc. We argue about money or bills or housework or driving or whatever. And, sometimes, those argum...