"The whole is greater then the sum of it’s parts." People say this. Big picture people. I don’t know why they say this, anymore. It means that any one thing is bigger or more important than each of the pieces that makes it up. "God is in the details". People say that too, big picture people (read with snarky tone). I can tell you that when you lose someone their whole absence is overwhelming, and an immeasurable void. But it is all of the details of your relationship with this person that constantly remind you what you’ve lost. You’ve felt this. Death is not the only loss we experience.
An example: My dad knew how to get anywhere in Chicago just being given an address. He had worked for a taxi company while in college and his father before him also drove a taxi. He once told me, with great pride, after I chauffered my parents around my old home Boulder, CO – that I would make a good taxi driver b/c I seemed to know all the good routes. I was aware that this was a great compliment – that he had seen a bit of himself in me. I still think of my dad when I log on to mapquest, the only replacement I have been able to find. Though I would always prefer to ask someone who knows - Mapquest doesn’t tell you stories of a place.
Recently, coming home from that Harry Potter outing I took last week, I thought to myself, “I’m going to tell Mom this tomorrow…where is she again?” And then I remembered. And I realized I had lost the one person I could tell all the details of my own life to; the one person I knew always wanted to hear about all the small things. And for me this has been a great adjustment. I am finding ways to tell these details (see odd “Florida” entry below). And my friend at work certainly hears the majority of the random details of my day that I’m compelled to share b/c I see him daily and that’s been the nature of our friendship since the beginning. (Thanks, John!) But he’s got other things on the horizon and I’ll need to figure out how to express these thoughts again…
Writing a blog is not a conversation, but it may be the outlet I need to remember and share these details. Writing a blog is strange, because I cannot see your faces. Your responses – when they come – are delayed, often hours/days later. It is not a conversation, but right now it’s what I’ve got.
I keep saying to people, "Isn't it weird that I have a blog??" I guess I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing, but I'm compelled to be here and to tell "you" these things. So I think I'll be around these parts awhile longer.
