Sadness...

So amid all the joy and frivolity of this season, here comes tragedy. We know that death comes to us all eventually; no man is immortal. But at Christmas death seems somehow more cruel, more real and in some ways more final. The death of a friends mother reduced me to a puddle last night. I have never met this woman and yet her death brought a flood of emotion from me. Memories of my own mother's death two years ago came rushing up to the surface and all my strength and diginified reserve were lost.
This year Christmas has been so vivid, in such full technicolor. The joy of it has been overwhelming, and on the flip side this sadness is just as vivid and rich. My prayers are with my friends and their loss but selfishly it makes me turn inward and mourn my own losses. It also makes me want to build up the walls of defense another layer. I want to protect myslef from the hurt and so up goes the protective barriers. The problem with these barriers is that while they protect from the pain the lock out the joy and reduce the vivid colors to grays. It's a constant stuggle for me to keep the walls down and enlist a little bravery against the sadness.
In the mean time, say a prayer for the Edge family and love the ones you have a little more this Christmas.