Most of our days are filled with very different realities. Even the sight to which we all wake up to, the rooms, the smells, the noises, and the demand all unique. Although we think of each other often we spend a great majority of our weeks deep in the throes of our own worlds.

Bryan wakes up about a two miles down the road from me in a small apartment with paper thin walls where he bears the sounds and smells of way too many neighbors way too close. He readies himself alone and heads down south with about a 30 minute commute that I picture is filled with a wonderful soundtrack to spend the day helping at risk individuals keep their homes, education, grocery money, heat on, etc. What I have heard him say is the days are full, long, frustrating, interesting, and that the bigger problems feel like they never get solved. I think he is talented and compassionate and makes a difference everyday.

I picture Amy waking in one of two beds with the chance of having one or two children near and their cries being her alarm clock for the fifth year in a row. I see her open her yellow door pantry to begin heating milk, making coffee and setting the day in motion for her crew. She has a variety of different days, some offering park trips and doctors visits, and some offering coaching calls and client meetings to discuss & assess the gifts and call someone has in their life. She is kind, sacrificial, and tireless in my eyes.

I bring them up today because it has remained difficult amidst our many many differences to know how to meet each other right now well. We hardly speak the same languages most days. But this really beautiful thing has happened as our dad has invited us every few weeks into a space of an hour where we each pick up the phone, weary from each of the travels journeyed that day, and we talk. My dad set up these calls so we could have the freedom to remember together some times that we deeply miss our mother/wife. They have been a powerful connection and healing time. The phone connects the four humans in the world who cannot forget their loss no matter what fills their days. We function and carry on as best we can but the truth in the stories we tell one another of when we suddenly find ourselves face down missing her so, they offer something so raw and sweet to each other. When Amy talks of coming home from a school meeting and wanting to tell mom all about it and hear what she would say back and the comfort that would bring, i tear up.... and picture 10 instances of my own. When Bryan talks of his wrestling with his memory of the way she had to go, i shake my head on the other line.... I know, I don't get it. When dad arrives at this annual beach trip with some dear friends and finds himself needing to leave and walk to the beach alone because the decades of memories of beach trips with mom flood his whole body as he first sees the ocean, I nod... makes so much sense.

Its almost as if each of us are huge houses with many many rooms that are mostly decorated and occupied nothing like the others, but there is this one window that we each look out to the same garden and it is all so familiar and full to each of us. And the garden is a sacred space to visit, its fragile and tender to relay time there. But once we let one another know its like the plants blossom more fully. I'm quite grateful today for my dad's invitation and pursuit with each of us to offer this space to remember and share.