A PENSIVE STATE OF CONTEMPLATIVE CLARITY IS MINE

This post was penned and published, today:

Several months back, my dear friend from high school days, Debbie, made me aware of another friend’s battle with ALS.  Our ailing friend, Jamie, and her twin sister, Jenna had been inseparable throughout their entire lives.  These sweet girls wore matching outfits and hairstyles to school, every day.  Upon graduation, they attended the same college, taught at the same grammar school and upon marrying their sweethearts, both couples moved from the Midwest to make their homes in Florida, where their families were raised.  Though we’d enjoyed each other’s friendships throughout high school, the twins and I lost touch as is often true once separate college adventures sweep each of us into a whole new social circle.  In fact, Debbie and I had drifted apart for many years, as well, until a high school reunion brought us together, and our spirits embraced a mutual sense of delight as our love for each other re-ignited so spontaneously as to connect our hearts from that moment to this one as naturally as if we’d never experienced separation at all.  If memory serves me, I don’t remember the twins presence at any of the official reunions that I’d so eagerly attended.  However, I enjoyed seeing Jamie once during these past 55 years, and I remember feeling that something didn't feel right, because Jenna, who was unable to be with us, was not at her twin’s side.

During recent months, after many years apart, Jenna, Jamie and I reconnected via email once Debbie had made me aware of Jamie’s courageous spirit, battling the horrific debilitating illness that ALS proves to be.  I reached out by sending my love to the twins, tucked into a bouquet of bright yellow roses, and upon receiving my long-distance hug, their response expressed the depth of their surprised delight to have heard from me, and as we three enjoyed reminiscing over high school, our hearts smiled and the years slipped away. As the twins remained inseparable throughout every stage of life, Jamie’s passing, last Friday, is sure to be a profound loss to Jenna, who, having been at Jamie’s bedside throughout her lengthy illness, has expressed that her beloved sister is at last at peace. Hopefully, over time, that thought will ease the depths of my friend’s grief.  And somehow, over these past few days, knowing that Jamie’s valiant struggle has mercifully come to an end as she passed from this life into the peaceful hereafter, the conscious portion of my mind, attending to Jenna’s irretrievable, irreplaceable loss, has re-awakened my sensitivities to ponder ever more deeply upon the circle of life ... and now that clarity's transparency is once again mine, I'll feel free to describe waves of emotion, which are no longer opaque, when next we meet ... Jamie, Jenna and Debbie (before contact lenses), standing right above me