Sunday, my dear Michelle cried remembering her loving father, lost too soon. 

Selfishly, quietly, I mourned my lack-of-father. For what’s worse—to lose a loving father, or to lack a loving father in one’s life from the get-go? We’re warmer, these days, my pa and me—but our connections are still brief, shallow, few-and-far-between.

Either way, I celebrate mother’s day on father’s day, each year (see the meme, here). 

And today, I let go. Letting go isn’t “spiritual,” or pretty. It’s spiritual, and it’s sad, and it’s ugly, and it’s healthy, and it’s a moment to honor the past so as to keep the love circulating within us. Read about that moment, here, about my dear departed dog Redford, if so inspired.

It’s sad when such “letting go moments” happen, just another step away from our love. But, too, life goes on!

Letting go is a moment.⁠
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Today I moved his still-hairy blankets back in to get washed (they’d been in the backyard, had wrapped him the night he died). ⁠
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I took all the cards folks sent to and for Redford off the mantle because a new old tiger oak mirror’s getting hung up there. ⁠
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I casually unpinned my article about him from my twitter handle because I shared a few words about empathy that folks were connecting with. ⁠
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These things all happened naturally, together, today, without premeditation.⁠
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These little things are big things. Life streams inexorably forward, leaving us with dear memories, only. But even these washed-away memories, these sad, rich, sweet memories…make up some of who we are and help shape our path flowing forward.