Texture

It’s the texture in life that we appreciate even as we crave the silken smoothness.

My memory is filled not with the days of bliss and calm, but with the highs, the lows, the cuts, scrapes and misadventures, for they are what make up the mosts of life. The most memorable. The most enlightening, frightening, growth-inducing moments. They define me, develop me, change me in ways that bliss and calm cannot.

Yesterday was four years since my brother passed through this life. Four years of textures high and low and blissful calm. As I see him more and more in my children, I miss him intensely, as much for who he was as for the clarity he might provide. Turbulent lives lead us to crave the calm and the clarity of reflection, the opportunity to process and categorize, to take what we need to move on and somehow incorporate changes into our lives.

There are days when my memories are all good, when my family is somehow in sync and peace hovers, but those days are but sparsely scattered, instead giving way to uncertainty and doubt. And it is these that force growth. It is these that are memorable. It is these days filled with anxiety that bring us closer, mend our wounds and make us stronger, providing the balance and structure to the days of bliss and calm.