This has been a year with so much loss, I can’t even count the friends, almost friends, idols, artists — people who mattered to me somehow — who have gone. Just as well for lockdown because I had simply stopped going to funerals. There were so many and that was before the pandemic.

And tonight I am sad because I am losing a friend and there is nothing I can do to keep her with us.

A finch meets a sparrow between the feeders.

I have done very little grieving because I have been afraid to let myself grieve and I’ll be better after a while, but there is so much grief. Knowing that so many of us are similarly grieving is not really as much comfort as one wishes. I remember when my mother passed and I was in Israel. I didn’t have the money for a plane ticket home. Nearly a dozen of the friends in my life had within that same period lost a mother or father and I remember one day we were all standing my balcony and we began to cry. Together. It was the first time most of us had been able to cry.

This time, we are alone or in small groups. All I wanted today was to feel that some friends still existed. So for all of us who have passed through this year and been afraid to cry because who knows when or if we could ever stop? I think it’s okay to be sad. Maybe that’s how we need to feel.

Categories: #Birds, #Photography, Friendship, Relationships

Tags: Marilyn Armstrong, mourning, sad