I'm having a hard time beginning the week this Monday. My heart is not completely in the things I must do, and my thoughts are lost ... somewhere ... maybe in the events and happenings of the last few days. There have been beginnings and endings, this weekend. We connected again with friends we hadn't seen in too long, and while we parents chatted and caught up, our four teen boys picked up just where they'd left it the last time we'd gotten together some years back. Only this time there weren't playing wild-racing-around games, but loud card games and telling jokes to the sound of rock music. We also lost a friend this weekend, a woman of my age, a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister. Sitting in a church full of people during the funeral, it weighed on me that this wasn't the first time I'd hugged a bereaved husband, children and parents.
And throughout all this, in and out of rooms, in and out of events, a little ballerina flitted about in her new hand-me-down tutu, murmuring the names of ballet moves in French, singing along to Italian children's songs with joy, peace, and passion.
