Juxtaposed*

Yesterday was an odd sort of day.

I was happy to wake to a clean house and plans to walk the faire. The clean house was my Mother's Day gift, and better than flowers (they fade) or breakfast in bed (ugh, crumbs) or a piece of jewelry that isn't my style but I'd have to wear anyway because it was a gift. Walking the faire was something for the family to do as...well...a family.

I enjoyed trying on garb until I found a new outfit, and was delighted with the new, knee-high black boots with blue laces that will match my costuming. I felt like a kid again. I was a kid again, shopping for a costume with my Mum, playing dress-up in a way I never did as a child. We neither of us forgot, though, that sorrow was nibbling around the edges.

I loved seeing my son have fun, play games, win little prizes that are worth nothing and yet are invaluable because he smiled and smiled and laughed and his eyes twinkled and shone with a child's perfect light.

I was sad to think about my Aunt D, whom I loved from a distance. I was sad to think of her children, who (grown though they be, are still her children) losing their mother just before Mother's Day...a day they would be constantly reminded of other's joy and their own loss.

The sorrow and the pleasure were overlapping, juxtaposed, intertwined, inseparable.

How very like all of life, the bitter and the sweet mingling, so well blended that one may not be parted from the other.

*I seem to be thinking/using this word a great deal of late. What are the planets up to??