There have been people who brought me a box of clothes, that once kept someone they love warm. But now that person is gone, and the clothes are what they have left. I create quilts from them, so that the memories stay alive, even as the empty space looms like a cave. 

The other day a woman told me about emotions that have been in storage for many years. At the time her child died, they hit like a tsunami, and she could barely stand. People rushed in with comfort, both written and edible. Somehow she kept slogging.

But last fall the feelings announced that they were no longer tolerant of hiding in a shoe box on the shelf. She chanced upon a stack of letters that friends had written, and read them for what seemed like the first time. A quarter of a century had passed, and maybe she was prepared to wade back into the trauma.

The messages were kind, brimming with compassion. Some of the writers had wept through their own losses and could hold her from shared grief.

My friend found herself at the graveyard, standing silently before the epitaph that could no longer be ignored.

Like daybreak, she felt a surge of hope.

I've heard that earthly time is irrelevant in heaven. What seems like an arduous wait now probably translates to less than a half note rest in the music. When we again grasp the warm hands of fathers and husbands and daughters it will not have been a moment too late.