When both joy and sorrow visit
Life and Death don't always come in separate chapters. Our Bill Geist shares this very personal story:
Joy and sorrow come into all of our lives -- last week, both visited my family on the same day.
In the morning, boundless joy, as my daughter, Libby, and her husband, Kevin, had a baby boy: Billy Wildes.
With a name like that he's going to be something special.
He's adored by all -- even his big brother, Russell.
My wife's mother, Edi, shared her delight in a voicemail: "I'm so excited about little Billy," she said. "How wonderful!"
That evening, Edi went to sleep . . . and did not wake up.
All of us have or will go through this -- but to my wife, Jody, and her brothers and sister, that doesn't matter now. They have holes in their hearts.
Edi was not one of those who "died too soon." She was 88 and had lived a full life. But that doesn't matter right now, either.
She died in her sleep, the way we'd all like to go -- but even that doesn't matter. Not yet.
They will not see Edi again, or hear her voice or her laugh . . . she laughed a lot.
I met her back in 1968. She was young, attractive, and as much fun as any of my friends. I had never met a mother quite like her.
In 1987 my first fan letter read was from Edi ("My favorite columnist now appearing on my favorite TV show!"). Neither of us let on that we even knew each other.
On my way to my own mother's funeral twenty years ago, I pondered the farmers out plowing under last season's cornstalks, enriching the soil for a new crop of sprouts.
Now as spring trips north, bringing bouquets of flowers for both the newly-arrived and the dearly-departed, Edi lives on in our hearts and cherished memories . . . and in her children, grandchildren, and (yes, Billy), even great-grandchildren. Edi is with us.