Someone gave me a little book on grief today and it helped; every little bit helps.  This passage was hidden in it's pages:

"The melody that the loved one played on the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust.  We must seek out the artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us find the road to life again, who will walk the road with us."  Rabbi Joshua Liebman

I love the images of the piano of my life not ever being played in quite the same way again and the artists of the spirit.  Those phrases allow me somehow to see beauty in the future.  Seeing my life as a piano that was played one way and can still be played again, just in a different way allows for such variation, new combinations, different emphasis, phrasing, timing....I like it.  And that it is artists of the spirit who are to be sought.  I've always wished that I was an artist of some kind and I like the idea of being an artist of the spirit, of life.  I hope that as I find those in my life I will be one for others as well. 

In church today, our minister talked about so many of the pains and losses of our world and how love is the only way out.  Every great spiritual path tells us this.  Love one another, first and foremost.  He asked us to stand and share an act of love that we were a part of this last week. When I start thinking like that I am overcome by the beauty of the place I am in right now.  There are so many acts of love, it could take pages to share them all.  All is not lost, love still wins.  He ended with this quote from Wendell Berry:

"I have no love except it come from thee.  Help me carry this candle against the wind."

That is all we can really do for one another, help carry the candle against the wind.