Friends are the family you choose for yourself

We have known each other down to the marrow of our own grieving bones. We've known each hurt and heartbreak. Our tears have flown into a river together, yours and mine all mixed up. We've cried for sins, and depression, broken hearts, isolation, the broken Church, marriages and children and this whole broken world.

The miraculous is in the joy shared when everything dictates otherwise. We've laughed with tears still in our eyes, the laughter choking off the last sob in the throat. We've marveled together at the offspring that somehow share our DNA but oh what people they are becoming on their own. We've loved deep, for generations.

And sometimes it is a lonely path through the snow. Sometimes you're there to help people my wilderness. Sometimes now it's your daughters who come to my rescue.

We watch close as the next generation knits themselves into an unravelable thing called "beloved". There is no untangling this yarn that's bound us to each other since I was just a child. And here is the hands and feet of Jesus in the meals we've shared, the long talks, the knowing God together, deeper every day. There are thirteen of us now, caught up in this little everyday miracle. For is that not what you'd call a friend who is unfailing for 29 years?

Beloved.

Heart still beating but it's not working

It's like a hundred thousand voices that just can't sing

I reached out trying to love but I feel nothing

Oh, my heart is numb

But with you

I feel again

And with you

I can feel again