Nov. 2, 2010 Tuesday: All Souls
"Life is made of ever so many partings welded together." From the moment we are born we begin to mourn; we mourn the security of the womb, the wonder of childhood, and the halcyon days of youth. we mourn our classmates whom we have outgrown or who have outgrown us. We mourn friends who have moved away, left us behind, or have died. We pine away over unrequited love, outworn romantic dreams, and the prince charming who never came. We grieve over the unrealistic aspirations and ambitions that never came to be and the illusionary dreams that we have for our children. We must mourn the things that never were and will never be, and all things that the coming of age and the inroads of time wrest away from us--our youth, our strength, our beauty, our loved ones, our memory, our health, and life itself.
As adults, we all know the numbing shock and terrifying feeling of being trapped in a sense of unreality at the sudden news of the death of a loved one. And if the shock is more that we can bear, then in order to survive, we need to deny reality and cling to every hope, no matter how false.
For little Therese, Pauline's (Therese's older sister who was like her second mother after her own mother's death) departure [to Carmelite monastery] was an unthinkable death for her; it was a loss that was too heavy for her to bear.
Therese came to realize at a very tender age, the hard fact that we must endure loss at every stage of life's journey. When she found out that Pauline was going to enter the convent and leave her behind, she awoke to the painful realization that life is made up of ever so many partings welded together. "In one instant, I understood what life was; until then, I had never seen it so sad; but it appeared to me in all its reality, and I saw it was nothing but a continual suffering and separation."
