and again...

Besides the multitude of celebrities, I have been party to at least ten funerals this year, four in the month of January alone. Over Thanksgiving the father of another close friend was buried.Yesterday, my daughter and her boyfriend attended the funeral of a woman from her boyfriends Army Reserve unit, who involved in a horseback riding accident just before Thanksgiving, and passed away last weekend. My brother's mother-in-law died Wednesday at the age of 83. We go, we hug family, we hear eulogies, some powerful and inspirational, some tired and empty - some we don't hear at all, as we are lost in our thoughts of mortality and the meaning of it all...

Cayla, the woman whose funeral was yesterday, was 22. She was married January 9, 2009. Her husband was in Iraq when she was injured in the accident. She never regained consciousness... and last week the family made the decision to donate her heart, liver and kidneys for transplants. Four people will get new life because she lost hers. Cayla joined the Army right out of high school, and had been in Kuwait for a year from mid 2007 to mid 2008. She was in college seeking a degree in large animal veterinary science. It's over now, she is resting in the cold, frozen ground.

Her husband will have to go back to Iraq. Her unit will carry on without her. Her family has memories and a whole in their hearts. And life will go on, whether we want it to or not. My prayer is that her almost 11 months of marriage was fulfilling and made her happy. In years to come, her husband will be able to remember her and smile and know that their time was fleeting, but good. We all need to remember that life is like that, fleeting, but good. Embrace today, and each other.