I’ve never experienced the death of a long-time partner or that of a child.  Aside from those, which seem to me almost beyond endurance, I can see now, from the vantage point of sixty years, how loss brings learning.

I sit in a wind-swept cabin, atop my airplane bungalow.  Wood surrounds me, from the knotty pine of the hundred-year old walls to the five-dollar thrift store desk.  I’m thinking of the tools which have etched into my days, carving lines and furrows with their finely-honed blades.  Disease, departure, death, disappointment:  Each of these wrenched from my arms  something that I have held dear.

Now the night closes around me, still, heavy.  Bitterness tempts, but I do not complain.  I can’t say why, but hatred holds no appeal for me.

A mere twenty minutes remain of the second day of the twenty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Sleep eludes me, but life continues.