On the Day

It's odd. I've been thinking about Pierre a lot this week, of course, as it has finally--or should it be already--been a year since he died. In a previous post I wondered how this would play out; what we would do; how to mark the day without being morose about it. After all, this moment really marks a sense of accomplishment in my life, having made it back to the world after being laid low.

The answer, it seems, is not to choose between the sorrow of our loss and the joy of our recovery, but to do a little of both. It is fitting, I think, that we actually get out of the house, not because it's where 'it' happened, so to speak, but because we want to think of him in a way that is more universal, connected to the larger whole and not the particular place.

So, we are off to spend a couple of days at Enchanted Rock. To those who have been there, I need say little more, but to those who do not know of the place and have not felt the intense spiritual energy that is focused there, I need to explain that this is one of the places--perhaps even the last--where we went, as a family when we felt the need to re-connect to the earth. Physically, Enchanted Rock is an enormous dome-shaped granite outcrop about an hour from Austin. Spiritually, it has been a place of healing and regeneration for people from the very earliest times till today. It is hard to describe the calming energy that this place resonates. You simply have to go there and feel it.

So we will. At the top of the warm granite dome on a late February morning, we will raise our eyes to the open sky and allow its free expanse to lift our hearts as we remember Pierre. I have, in a year, come to this conclusion: He is gone but not lost; I have him here in my hands and heart forever.