----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 4:10 PM Subject: Re: Taylor Elizibeth Seeberger
> Rob -- I went dormant last Wednesday and didn't get home until today, so I > apologise for the lateness of this response. > > Loosing anyone is hard. Loosing a child would be gut wrenchingly > difficult, IMO. I've never had to bury a child, niece, nephew, etc., so I > don't know what it is like. I am sorry you are experiencing this. Please > hear and pass on my heart felt sadness. > > You said: > >One only has the time one gets to give love to those you care about. > > All too true, but a wonderful insight to gain at any time in life. Thank you. > Taylors funeral was friday morning. My mother told me the services were at 10:30. I arrived at 10:20 to find the services just ending. I'm sure everyone can imagine how horrible I felt. Embarressment isnt a proper description of how I felt, mortification is more like it. I really wanted to be angry at someone, but could bring myself to blame no one but myself, and so, unsettled by finding myself in an unsatisfactory turn of events, I sought insufficient succor in shakey and tentative self forgiveness. As the service ended and the funeral home spokesman gave directions for the funeral procession, I hugged my way through my family one by one till I reached my brother on the other side of the room. I hugged him tightly and awkwardly(he is taller than I), and quietly said through tears"Man, I'm so sorry I was late, I thought mom said 10:30." "Its Ok, don't let it bother you" he said. "I feel like I really let you down" Shame was all I could feel. "It doesnt matter, you're here." Until that moment I could not say that I had ever felt a physical presence of forgiveness, the lifting of a burden, release, relief. It was a profound moment for me. And a small mistake that had magnified was placed in its proper perspective. Taylor was buried in a section of a cemetary devoted to babies. It was strange. I could imagine echoes of the loss of many families as I read the names on the stones, yet it seemed to be a kind of a happy place. Pleasant in its own way and devoid of the darkness of spirit I usually attribute to the resting places of the dead. Afterwards we went to visit Brittannys gravesite. She died last may, and last month her stone was laid on her grave. It was a pretty stone with her picture embossed upon it above the inscriptions. The picture of her truely captured the spirit of the girl I knew and I found some satisfaction in that. On a very sad day, a day I would have prefered to not have seen, I saw light three times, and I hope to see better for it. xponent Testify maru rob
