wordsimageslife
an exploration of life as a parent & designer

The Circle of Life (with apologies to Joni Mitchell)

Later today, I will pay respects to our neighbor who lost her long battle with cancer. Later in the week, another friend's father will be layed to rest. I seem surrounded, at least this year, with the end of the cycle. Or maybe not The End but the physical end.

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

That end, the snuffing out of some of the light in our own lives, does not seem to re-brighten over time. The darkness only seems to soften.

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten year frozen streams
Words like ‘when you’re older’ must appease him
And promises of ‘someday’ make his dreams

All that you hold in your heart and mind about a loved one lost can reflect unrealized dreams or simply the truth. Either way what's left is the hurt and the pain.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind from where we came
And go round and round and round in the circle game

In our own lives we live through our experiences as sign posts of the past. Some good and some bad but reminders just the same. And once you lose someone so close, your perceptions of those around you shifts as well, for the good and the bad.

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cart wheels cross to car wheels through the town
And you tell him take your time it won’t be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow those circles down

With each loss your life becomes new. With every ending there is a new beginning or so it seems to me. That doesn't make things any easier and I know that some lose their way in the grief that follows a loss.

So the boy who dreamed tomorrow now is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur, coming true
There’ll be new dreams maybe better dreams a plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

The years will come and the years go. I watch my children grow and a sadness creeps in that they barely got to know my Dad, never got a chance to even meet K's parents, and well, with my Mom, the jury is still out. You'd think that a loss makes you value more what you have, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way.

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return we can only look behind from where we came
And go round and round and round in the circle again

Posted by robdesign at November 16, 2004 02:05 AM