Oh how we need community!

I bring my dying grandmother a muffin on Mother's Day. 

Oh, what a silly thing to do! 

I also give her a bracelet and a painting of wildflowers her mother once made. 

Some of us flutter awkwardly around sorrow like a bee incapable of landing on a flower, while others root down like Catalpa trees, swaying in the breeze of emotional energy. Some of us chat about job and house and stuff, while others gently dig in the gardens of their loved ones, pulling weeds, pressing seeds, and watering brittle soil. Some of us sob. Others belly laugh. Some of us drink. Others eat. Some of us run. Some of us hide. Some of us fight. Some of us freeze. While others stand still, waiting for sun and rain and sleep. Some of us gather. Some of us are gathered. All of us grow. Some of us feel torn and frayed and afraid, while others carry thread and needles and yards of cotton cloth for patches, bandages, blankets, and jackets. Some of us hunger. Others forage and feed and feast. Some of us are joyful and fulfilled and free, while others toil with regret, ruts, and uncertainty. Oh how we need community! 

Grandma knew this. She fed us. She gathered us. She stitched us hats and blankets and sweaters. She planted flowers and lettuce and tomatoes. She tended and foraged and feasted. She rested. We all remember her floating behind their boat in a dark blue suit. We all remember her clam chowder and her letters. Eventually, in her eighties, her hands could no longer stitch or knit, and even writing long letters hurt her fingers. 

Family is a patchwork quilt. It is a three-sisters garden. It is an ecosystem. It is healthy when it is diverse - diverse in experience, diverse in opinions, diverse in ages, diverse in need, and diverse in abundance. Community is holy. It connects us like a dewy web, like forest roots, like a hive. It connects us with light and shadow. It connects us with story. It connects us with love. 

We stand together in her church. We kneel in the pews. We sit side-by-side and sing her beloved songs. We stand beneath a yellow and white canopy while a colony of honey bees swirls above us, dancing and communing, before leaving together in a spirited sweep.  

Now Grandma can be a colony of bees. She can be the spider or the tree. She can be the smell of fresh bread or the salt sea breeze. She can be lines of light. She can be a song. She can be stitches in the hem of everything.