The Best I Could Give

So...we are "celebrating" the first Christmas without my sister, who died of liver failure this summer. I really can't believe the words I just typed. I am still so stupefied. ...man, that is REALLY a good word for grief! Stupefied: What happened?! What happened?! How can this have happened?! How can this be real?! Grief is trying to bring back order from the chaos that remains in the wake of the hurricane that was her life and death. It is overwhelming and confusing and hard. It is very, very hard. While she was dying, I became oddly obsessed with her feet. I don't know what it was about her feet. Perhaps it was just that everyone wanted to be up by her face, and her feet were out of the way. I could stay there and be close and not feel like I was hogging up the last moments of her. I had this image in my mind of a lady at the feet of Jesus. (It was probably a Mary.) She was weeping. She knew His death was imminent, and she poured out her heart