Grief and its resolution

It is the nature of grace always to fill spaces that have been empty.
Goethe

I was thinking about grief today. I had been grieving over my mother's death, and then when I visited Natchez, my mother's best friend, Betty McGehee, basically said she'd be my mother now. It made me teary-eyed when she said that. As my husband drove down the Natchez Trace afterwards, I felt as if my grief had been resolved.

When I went back to work last week, I spoke to a woman I know but she just didn't seem to be there. Her sharpness was gone, and she didn't to be listening to me.

I questioned her more closely and discovered that her father had recently died. I felt so sorry for her, now having to go through what I'd been through. She always has a cheery persona but now she looks vulnerable and like a different person entirely.

In a way, though, I like her better when I can see her for what she really is -- a person who needs comfort and help from other people. It makes her seem so human. I know soon she will began to regain her professional demeanor, and I won't see this side of her anymore.