Letting go

Life is so full of receiving and letting go.

This has been a season of letting go in my life.

But it’s amazing how each time I learn to let go, I receive.

Sometimes, it comes in realizing just how much I have received, when I may not have seen it before.

Other times, I let go and receive a love and fullness to fill the emptiness of what I let go.

Either way, the balance always stuns me with its beauty and rightness.

Today, as I prepare for another personal season of letting go, I also let go of someone very dear to me.

My aunt passed away today.  She’s really my great-aunt, but two sweet aunts were as dear to me as grandmothers.  “Great-aunt” makes them sound so distant, which they never were.

Her sister and life-long companion passed away when my fifth daughter was just tiny.  Now, when my next one is small, she passes, as well.  The give and take of life amazes me.  One life ends, another begins.

One love is let go, another is given.

Watching my aunt my whole life, I learned without her ever teaching or lecturing one thing.  She just had faith and kept going.  It was so simple.  I never heard her complain or cry that life was unfair, though I always thought hers was.  I always knew she deserved more.  She was so sweet and good.

But maybe that’s why she didn’t have what she “deserved.”  She was ready for a deeper growth and testing.

My heart feels full.  Full of love and gratitude for the lives that have loved mine.  Loved me with no conditions.

Full of gratitude for the examples I have seen, of women who went forward in faith…faith with no conditions.  Faith that sprang from knowing that they were loved and watched over, that somehow it would all be right.

I miss them.  I am so sad that they aren’t here any more, though their passing is right.  But I feel different tonight.  I feel more sure that if I can let go, I can receive.

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