Making Kites

We made kites today at Lions & Whales. It's funny, it was my grandfather who first made a kite with me, and I used one of his saws today too to make the notches for the frames, but I didn't remember until I woke up that he was buried 23 years ago today. I remember holding my brother while he was crying at the funeral but not crying myself, in fact I don't think I've ever cried at a funeral. It sounds almost sociopathic, but I don't mean it that way. Heck some t.v. commercials make me tear up. And I cried the hardest ever when my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, just not when she died. It's the "bon voyage" aspect --the whole they're gone and we won't see them for a long time. I guess for me the line between this world and the next has always been somewhat permeable, the dead still present. I've just always been aware of the truth behind the Baha'i teaching that the good people keep doing good and that the bad can't hurt us (they don't have any real substance).

Grandpa retired the year I turned four, and lived about 4 miles from us. When my brother or I'd get sick during the winter and had to stay home from school he'd come over and make a snowman outside our window. My room was in the front of the house and it must have looked funny the snowman facing in, but it was for me and not everyone going by. I still feel watched over --protected. Grandpa felt particularly present today. One of the quotes we read today was "O my Lord! ...make him one of Thy angels whose feet walk upon this earth even as their souls are soaring through the high heavens." This my answered prayer for today. I love you Grandpa.

-your "Jeffy"