Grief and the abundance of life

This morning I dumped goat cheese on my scrambled eggs and was reminded of my cousin who works in a fabulous cheese emporium. A fancy name for a store or market but the root is from Latin poros, which means journey.  Cheese and gourmet goodies travel from the world to Longmont, Colorado and they are delicious. Decadent. A far cry from gooey "American" cheese food.   And when my brother in law died, that decadent and delicious foods showed up at Janet's house.

In the midst of grief and sorrow, our cousin put together an extravagant basket of French cheeses, little toast things, spreads and jams, smoked salmon and these little melt-in-your mouth shortbread lemon bites.  We endured  the funeral, survived the reception and returned to an empty house- starving.  We attacked her bounty of expensive gourmet food like it was McDonald's french fries and we had just hiked in from Outer Mongolia.

We sat on the floor and ate with our hands. We opened wine and gorged ourselves with the most amazing meal. We were loved in an extravagant, outlandish fashion.... and after a week of "consolation carbohydrates" we deserved it.  Or did we?

Do we deserve extravagance in the midst of pain? 

Do we deserve abundance in the face of tremendous loss? 

Do we deserve to love and laugh after all the pain, in the middle of raw grief? 

All I know is we were renewed in our spirits, 

united in our love and laughter 

and humbled by this gift.  

We appreciated the lasagnas that had streamed into the house- well, not all of us. This was an Italian family, lasagna a family meal. My niece refused to eat it without her dad.   But we were grateful for the kindness of friends and neighbors who brought pizzas and pastas and casseroles and cookies and sweet rolls.  But when a basket of expensive abundance was placed in our hands, we were delighted. Overwhelmed by the sheer generosity.  Amazed that fine food could so restore our spirits on a bleak day.  And if we had know what was in the basket, "Of course we would have invited you back to the house." My brother and his family had lived in France for years and had to settle for leftovers the next day.  I have no pictures but will put in a shameless plug!  http://www.cheeseimporters.com/home.html

Fast forward a few months and now we are purging Janet's home of all unnecessary items- she is moving from a house into an apartment and most has to go.  We are in the midst of a garage sale- which surely would have made Dante's list of one level of hell if he ever had to endure one.  It's humiliating to place your treasures on the yard and have people paw through them.  It's discouraging to expect a decent price or understanding from strangers. Garage sales suck. 

But in the midst of that difficulty, God sent Judy.  She was a volunteer at their town's performing and visual art center when Janet worked there. She came to the yard sale to help, to buy stuffed animals for a mission on the Mexican border and perhaps find mirrors for her latest mosaic piece.  We appreciated her help, gave her all the stuffed animals and were delighted when she offered us a mosaic class.  We had a ton of tasks, mostly heartbreaking and all exhausting and had no time for play. 

But play we did. I set out to talk about Judy and our classes but food took over instead. But both were extravagant signs of abundance in the midst of grief and turmoil.  Both were gratefully received and both brought life and hope, laughter and beauty. One was consumed within a few days but we treasure the memory. The other is a more permanent sign of friendship and fun.  Both were generous reminders of grace, abundance in the scarcity of grief. 

These are half finished.... the story will continue.

So do we deserve....

 beauty, kindness, grace, abundance, care, laughter.... 

extravagance....at any time?

I don't know what we deserve but we thrive on all these gifts and they are small pieces of love that create a thing of beauty- in our lives, in our families, in our communities.  Next time I want to give with abundance into the dark of someone's grief.