It’s Too Much

Too much…

 

Does it feel like that to you too, or am I alone out here, an island of sorrow surrounded by rage and greed and pettiness?

No. I think we, you and I and so many more we will never meet, stretching far over the edge of the horizon, share this awful grief, this aching sense of loss.

It’s too much.

Hurricanes and tornadoes and floods. Raging wildfires consuming whole towns, choking us with ash and loss on a giant scale.

Manners and civility. Empathy and compassion. Acceptance rather than judgment, seeing the humanity of even those we oppose. We’ve lost it all.

And it’s too much.

198,000 lives taken by something we can’t even see, that is still not done with us, guaranteeing this wave of grief is not close to ebbing. All those lives they touched and nourished drifting now, stumbling through the daily routines that command everything but thought, unaware until they accidentally bump into grace.

It’s just too much.

She changed us, you know. Each of us, whatever our gender and politics. She changed us for the better.

My God, what a spirit! How could such a small body hold that huge spirit?

Her moral clarity and intellect never dimmed, even at the end. That radiance, that brilliance carved out space enough for millions, more than enough for you and I.

Her death gives us another opportunity to become who we’ve always been meant to be, to reflect tenderness and hope and determination on everyone we encounter.

The worst is never the last unless we let it be so.

The world already looked pretty bleak when FDR died. We were still fighting World War 2.

Christ was not the only victim of his crucifixion. Hope and purpose seemed to die that day as well, at least for those who had built their lives around his.

And yet mankind prevailed. A better mankind, thinking of others before oneself, sacrificing everything for people we would never know, who could never repay us, simply because it was the right thing to do.

Yes, it’s too much. We’re dealing with way too much.

And she would tell us our work is not over.

So let’s get busy making a better world.

That may sound trite but, in truth, it’s the only way to move forward.

It’s the only way things change for the better.