resilience

I got bad news today. I knew it was coming (see my January 31 entry at http://espressopronto.blogspot.com/2007/01/grief.html) but didn't manage to brace myself sufficiently. I've got some very, very, very difficult good-byes ahead of me and my heart is broken. I made every effort to get my mind off the sorrow today, but my eyes kept flooding with tears. I pushed through work, put myself through a hard workout, and even brought in tried-and-true culinary therapy-- fixing supper for friends and picking a new and somewhat challenging recipe-- to distract myself. But everything had an edge.

At the end of this grey day, the question nagging at me is: Is there grace in the fact that life goes on? Everything is different now that I know that my beloved friends (and particulary my darling R and her sweet sister E) are leaving me, but so much is the same. I don't want it to be the same-- the way you don't want the world to be the same after someone dies, or tragedy befalls, or your heart is broken for any one of a thousand reasons. But in spite of the fact that my heart is weeping, I can't deny that I did manage to be at least somewhat productive at work and I did fix a rather amazing Moroccan Chicken Tagine. What do you do with that? Is it all bad if you can still taste the flavours of Morocco? Essentially-- and yes, I dare say it is essential-- the human heart is a resilient thing. I reluctantly conclude that I will manage to carry on, carrying the pain of loss with me, given to tears and weeping from time to time, but carrying on all the same.