One Hundred and Fourteen Days (Part VIII)
An Ending and A Beginning I am coming to the end of the reflections of the life and death of Rukhsanah Israel. I am sure I have much more to share. However, I think this reflection is ending. I have never written about her. I have talked about her many times, most of the time in snippets. I am told that when I do talk about this and many other painful things in my life that I speak of them as if I am telling a story of someone I hardly know. They tell me that I am missing the emotion of the story. It isn’t that I don’t feel it, it is that I just am so good at compartmentalizing things. And of course, I am Norwegian and we are known for this. Today is the anniversary of the funeral. Funerals are supposed to bring closure. I am not sure that we had closure or that we ever will. However, while funerals are a looking back, they are also a looking forward. My church home was a wonderful place. We were small and like family. Barely two years before these same people had banded toget...