Bittersweet

Today I took my kids to my Uncle's farm to see their cousins. It was a beautiful day, if a little on the cool side for my liking, and in many ways it felt nice to be there. One of my favorite moments was driving the Quad Runner through the woods with my daughter and my niece holding tightly to my back. As they told me which way to go on the paths around the cornfields, sighting the farm from a distance, they shouted to each other: "Is that our farm? That's our farm!" So sweet.

And then there was the bitter. I hadn't been back to the farm since we had the memorial for Mary, who is buried at a cemetery near the farm. I went with my sister and my cousin (her husband) to the graveyard to see the bench that now serves as her headstone. Unable to talk with him about the incredible loss he'd sustained, I laid down on the bench, and let the tears come.

Running back from the cemetery to the farm, I could hear Big Head Todd singing:

It's bittersweet, both and sweet and bitter, bitter and sweet
It's a bitter sweet, surrender
It's bitter sweet, both sweet and bitter
Bitter and sweet, It's a bitter sweet, surrender...

Mary always loved that song.