A part of the main

As I type this, two youngish people I know are dying. One is a man, here in California. The other a woman, in New Hampshire. Both I know through my husband -- the man is a former congregant, the woman is my sister-in-law's spouse of 27 years. 

 

I know neither well, and might not recognize them on the street. Yet, it seems as if the coasts of the continent are dissipating slightly, rising like steam. Or like dry ice when water is poured on it, the breathable gasses lifting up toward heaven, the solid materials just fading away.

 

Can it be that the land mass of the United States is growing smaller, its edges fraying with the loss?  And that heaven is expanding, beyond proportionately, as their souls are celebrated in?

 

"No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind."

John Donne

We are diminishing, even as they grow greater into eternity. 

 

Our blessings upon you, Lisa and Leonard, and Godspeed.