Too many deaths

        My son Ben received his Masters in Library Science on Sunday.  I am, needless to say, a proud Mom.

        Amidst all the buzz, there's a moment . . . he's standing in the doorway, posing for a picture.  Grandmother is outside, taking the shot.  I stand behind him, off to the side, watching this young man I know so well and not at all.  And I realize what I've always known . . . there will be a time when he will live and I will not . . . when I will not be in the snapshot.  And that is as it should be.  And that moment began today.

        Later, Ben is walking ahead, Mom is behind and I'm in the middle, bridging the generations, wanting to hurry ahead with the younger but waiting instead for the older, knowing that Benjamin slows down for me as I slow down for Mom,.  Never quite matching each other's steps, we walk single file along the sidewalk, one before the other - how is it that the one who came after walks before?

        A mother's son died today.  Joy's boy, a man, reallly, 61 years old is definitely a man, but still her boy -- a heart attack, it seems.  There has been much too much dying in our little town lately.  But as long as there is living, there is dying, old life making way for new.  And somewhere, a baby was born as a man took his last breath.  I don't know if there's hope in that, but somehow, there is comfort.