JUNE 10
...he was catapulted into a whole new world, and lost in it.
The sky was different. A ham sandwich was different. His
own shoes lined up in the closet this morning had looked so
unusual, he said, that he could hardly reach for them.
—JOSEPHINE HUMPHRIESIt is a continuing astonishment, running into the ordinary
world we were used to. Now we see everything through a
scrim of grief and loss. Of course the world looks different.
Would it be easier if we could be transported to some
setting where we weren’t always reminded of who is miss-
ing, who was here the last time we went to this particular
store or drove along this particular country road?
Some people, with this very thought in mind, go away
from home the first Christmas, or vacation somewhere other
than the usual family spot. They won’t have to endure the
familiar setting with its constant reminder—a perpetual
“What’s wrong with this picture?”
Yet the usual patterns of our daily life are what, eventu-
ally, most of us will have to contend with, to build a new
world within the world we know. And after a while we will
find, to our surprise and contentment, that it feels like home
again.
In the world I inhabit, I find steadiness, and a place to be.