Bridge

It started with a text from a close friend. That led to a series of further communications, by text, phone and WhatsApp to other friends. After that, I needed to clear my head and went to get some groceries in Falkirk, followed by a walk through Cumbernauld Glen. It helped a bit, but the sorrow of S's passing early on Tuesday morning became my companion for the day.

Got my flu jab in the late afternoon and sat through a church Zoom meeting in the evening.

S had been given two months, three at the most, and almost made it to five. They celebrated their Ruby Wedding Anniversary in that borrowed time.

She had prepared her funeral and has asked me to read a poem, The Tree of Life, by Herbert Read when the time comes. Part of it goes like this:
"We can take the Tree of Life as a symbol. The human race is the trunk and branches of the tree, and individual men and women are the leaves, which appear one season, flourish for a summer, and then die. One day, we will all be torn off by a storm or simply decay and fall and become part of the earth about its roots. When we die and fall the tree remains, nourished to some degree by our manifestation of life."

For S, now part of the earth's history, and yet contributing still to its future.