Frances Turns 50

Frances is celebrating her 50th birthday this month with a bicoastal celebration over two weekends. I flew to California yesterday to finalize details for the west coast event. We'll do the east coast party next weekend.

The flight was lovely - I had my own row, my own region, heck my own air to breathe. Doesn't happen much in this day and age! This is going to be a great party and I am excited about it, but Frances and I both miss Molly. Molly should be part of these celebrations; Molly and I should be collaborating on the details; I should not have made the trip out here by myself.

I am not touchy feely; my feet are planted even too firmly on the ground; but the fact is that as much as I missed Molly yesterday, her presence was unmistakeable. I saw a vibrant rainbow from the plane yesterday, hovering over the plane's wing. Molly drew rainbows in just about every elementary school art project - I think she figured out how to draw them and went with the tried and true - and since her death I have often felt her presence in the odd appearance of a rainbow. Sounds too simple, I know, but I have seldom been more sure about anything.

And then Frances' mom and I went to see a movie yesterday afternoon - I was lonely, sad, missing Molly- and we ended up at Country Strong - a movie that celebrates moving on after unspeakable grief. I had no clue what the movie was about; I really wasn't even planning on going to a movie. As we watched the movie, which is very challenging for one who has lost someone to suicide, I couldn't help but think that Molly wanted us to know that she gets it. We have to move on. She knows.

I am not relying on a creed to get me through my life without Molly. I am letting my experiences lead me. And my experiences teach me, over and over again, that the life that exists beyond this life is not some distant or even separate experience. It breaks into this life all the time. The veil that separates us all is thin and ripped in many places.

I am here in California celebrating a 50th birthday. Looking at a calendar, Frances does not have as many good years ahead of her as she has behind her. Looking at life through the lens of some sort of eternity, Frances is just getting started and her best life is - most definitely - ahead of her.