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HOW DO WE GO ON
Even though we know death is a natural part of life…when someone we love is gone
we ask ourselves…what are we going to do now…how do we go on?
The answer is different for everyone…we all handle grief differently….
but I find some solace in the philosophy of my two old friends…Phil and Lee.
When I was teaching I thought…this crazy idea had appeal…
What if I my Autistic students and I served Meals on Wheels?
Everyone was skeptical…my school board, the Meals on Wheels people…everyone but me….
and when I finally got their approval…Meals on Wheels matched us up with Phil and Lee.
Phil and Lee were in their 80’s when I met them…and they agreed to share their route with us…They would drive the route in their car and we would follow in our bus.
We delivered Meals with them for years and by the time my teaching tenure came to an end…
thanks to this unlikely pairing…Phil and Lee and I became good friends.
When cancer took Phil’s leg…I was there to give Lee my support and try to help her understand
When cancer took Phil’s life…I was there to hold Lee’s hand.
I remember last time I saw Lee…what she said to me…that bright sunshiny day in May
It was a few months after Phil and passed…and she was about to move away.
She smiled saying, “It took me a while to laugh after Phil was gone
even after the worst of my grief had faded
I thought I was being disrespectful…I thought he’d feel jaded.”
“But when something triggered a memory of him and I began to laugh one day….
I thought how he would be so sad if he thought his death took my laugh away.”
“And that one laugh made me realize how with the memory of him I am blessed…
and finding joy and laughter without him…doesn’t mean I love or miss him less.”
“So now every time I feel like it…I let my laughter through….
and I’m confident, wherever he is, Phil is laughing too.”
Lee died a few years later…and it still warms my heart
knowing they are together…and will never again have to laugh apart.
