The 2020 shi-show continues, and this week has reached new levels of WTF-is-happening-and-why. On Monday I asked my volleyball teams what they need to work on to be better players and people, and one of my 16’s said, “Patience”. I started a blog on the benefits of patience, and then our little world fell apart. One of the dearest souls I’ve ever met lost his fight with COVID-19 and left us all bereft, trying to piece together a bit of grace in the face of a world that feels empty.
Part of me feels like I have no right to grieve the way I am. He wasn’t my husband, brother, father or son; he was just my friend. But he gave new meaning to the word friend. He was a big man who took up a lot of space, and there’s no one I know who’s big enough to fill that space. He had his own gravitational pull of mischief that drew you in to his twinkle. Even on the worst days, he could make a wholly inappropriate comment that made you spit-soda-outta-your-nose laugh, and the world would be okay again. Today, it doesn’t feel like the world will ever be okay again without that twinkle .
I know that this blog is usually motivational, but it’s also real. And right now everything is heavy and dark. We are moving around like robots. I would love to put a pretty bow on all this pain, and tie things up with a catch phrase that makes my loved ones feel better. But it will be a long time before any of us feel better.
So, I will listen to my girls and have patience. I will keep putting one foot in front of the other. I will hug those I can and send love to those I can’t, and we will, little by little, try to live in a world without Stuart.
