I’m glad you came back. It is hard to see Gail’s avatar, and then it hits me that she is gone. But in a way it is comforting to see the things she has written and I usually get a giggle or a laugh at some of the old posts.

But we’re still here!

Home will never be what it used to be once it’s gone. It’s up to you to continue the traditions you once adored.

No. You can’t because the place and the people you left change over time. I can never return the San Francisco I experienced in my youth, I can never go back to the town I was raised in, and after only four years, I can never go back the America I left. They no longer exist.

This was a reocurring theme in Thomas Wolfe’s novels Look Homeward Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again.

I’m grateful I can’t go home again. It was not wholesome; rife with dysfunction.

Simultaneously, I am immensely grateful to be able to create a new home over and over. I’m quite at home now, and the thought of someday moving on and leaving all this behind does not cause fear. It’s just another leg of the journey.

I’ve had to leave people behind, too. I’m glad about some of those partings; others engender some melancholy.

Everything changes and everything stays the same.

I think, while it is good to grieve the loss of someone, it’s probably not good to dwell on the past and the sadness. Let the sadness come to you, deal with it and then look forward. Don’t go seeking out things that remind you of how sad you feel.

I hope you will feel like sticking around though.

I know exactly what you mean. I felt the same way. Until someone else passed away, then I realized how much I liked that person too. I guess it is about caring for those that are still here. Realizing they mean something to us, before they go away forever, You know? Welcome back!

^^word