May all living beings everywhere, on all planes of existence, known and unknown, be happy, be peaceful, be free from suffering.

Borrowed from a metta (loving kindness) Buddhist meditation. Hopeful. Sensible. Simple. It doesn't matter how you identify, or what you believe. It's all semantics for this one wish, this desperate want and longing.

Liam feels distant. That window has closed, the one through which everything sparkled and vibrated with knowing after his death. Life trudges. My time to post comes and goes and I've got very little other than a vague sense of being grateful that people who need this space continue to find it, that the embrace is so vivid.

I wish you quietness, and the kind of rest that has you wake up feeling calm. And warm feet and glowing embers, and shortbread cookies or latkes and rosy cheeks or whatever sustains you. And tears if you need them, wet and cleansing.

These words render me mute by being all that matters.

And so I pass them on, and nod to you.

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What's your wish?

This little post is borrowed from Glow in the Woods, a collaborative community which continues to embrace bereaved parents with sensible and entirely cherub-free contemplations on walking again after loss. I add it here because those words might belong to you, too.

At this time of year we notice those who don't join the table for, yet again, an obscene heap of mashed potatoes among sparkling lights and stockings and a chugging little woodstove. We miss them, don't we? We look out at a blizzard's blanket and no matter how long it's been, grief is still that boomerang that clubs us with disbelief. Grace is noting the ache and sending out that wish, even if it feels unheard.

It's not unheard. I don't know how, on what plane, or in what capacity. I just know it. We are all accompanied. Mystery. Unexplained strangeness. Phosphorescents. We live among beings that glow electric, swirling and glittering in swell. How can there not be magic? How can we not be heard?