Today in Nashville: Heavy Hearts

Some of you know Mike and Jennifer Graziano, our dear friends from Chicago who now live in Nashville, suffered a terrible loss last week. We spent the afternoon in Nashville celebrating the life of Tess, their precious daughter. I am including Mike's post as our blog entry today, which is beautifully written and I hope that it will bless those of you who knew her or felt like you did through prayers these past few weeks. Thanks for all of your concern for her and their family. Continue to pray for them.

In Mike's words: 

"Celia (heaven) Tess (to reap) Graziano began her journey with us in Nashville, TN on June 27, 2012. and ended it on Wednesday, July 1, 2015.

As we wrote in her official obituary Tess was a luminous, numinous, lightning bolt of a girl and the outsized wake of her sudden departure will roll equal parts hope and heartache for years to come

It's difficult to believe the terrible constellation of occurrences that seem to have aligned to snatch Tess from us in this early Spring of her life. Needless to say her passing has been a profound shock.

One point of light in this abyss is that, because her body was so healthy, Tess was an ideal candidate for organ donation. Even now her unbridled heart beats inside another child's body several time zones away. Such an achievement represents the best in mankind and does great honor to Tess's life and luminous spirit - there is perhaps no better way to do so. 

Despite (or maybe precisely because of) the unforeseen, accidental nature of Tess's tragic death the upshot is not about vigilance or proper intervention, but is about time and the fragile, borrowed rafts we use to float our small, finite stretch of its deep and vast expanse. If we're lucky we can lash ourselves one to another and cross our time together, and in this hold tight and true to neighbor and kin on bow, stern, port and starboard. Now and again the members of our delicate, makeshift armada must unmoor from us (and make way for unremembered shores). Others then adjust around the void - for the space can never be filled. We should take hope in this ... for this detachment awaits us all, but the armada moves on. Whatever you do, do not take this flotilla for granted. 

We have been overwhelmed by the concern and friendship of family, friends and the community. If you know us you know how much we value and are buoyed by our relationships with others and never has this been more true than during this terrible trial."

I could not help but notice the encouragement onward through the words of TS Elliot on the back of her memorial. A call onward, and as Mike suggests...a hopeful one...to move on and to be thankful for the ones that we love.