I can’t get past what the priest said at Christine’s funeral about the silversmith and how God looks to see Himself in our souls and when He does, then He takes us home. I tell myself that it was a heart warming story for a funeral, that life is more complicated than that. But I can’t help feeling that I have missed the mark somehow. I am five years older than Christine; two and a half years older than Jean. If there is something about us that leads to an early death, why am I still here? Our parents, aunts and uncles and grandparents – except for a few – lived into their eighties. Why did Jean and Christine die so young? If God saw His reflection in their souls, what does He see in mine? How cloudy is my soul, how unpleasant must it be?

I know there are no answers to my questions, and that my questions are just grief talking, that in time the grief will pass. I have a difficult time praying right now. I still read the Magnificat in the mornings and evenings, but saying the rosary seems empty. Fr. Tim thought it might be time to try something else, but I am not sure what. I feel like a ship whose moorings have come loose in a storm. I am still afloat, not taking on water but just drifting in one direction and then another. I go to Mass and Adoration and leave feeling better for a time. But in the evenings, when it is time for bed, a time when Christine and I would talk, I grow weepy because she is not here. I would not have guessed growing up how connected my sisters and I would become. That losing them would be like losing a part of myself. And I wonder what is left of my life. And I understand that a person might wonder if God wants them at all.

What is it that God wants of me? What task does He have for me that I am still here? My husband and daughter are grateful that I am still living. They want me to stay for a very long time, especially Erin who thinks that I need to impart my values on Shamma as her grandparents did for her. While I am grateful for their love and concern, there are times when I would rather be with my sisters. Perhaps that sounds heartless or unloving toward my little family, but in the depths of grief I only want the pain to stop.