When I heard this song, I was thinking about how to balance out the grief.
Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life
Electric word life
It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here to tell you
There's something else
The afterworld
A world of never ending happiness
You can always see the sun, day or night
'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own
And if the elevator tries to bring you down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor
If you don't like the world you're living in
Take a look around you
At least you got friends
Are we gonna let the elevator
Bring us down
Oh, no Let's Go!
Somehow it's comforting that even Prince believes in the Afterworld and in the perspective you get on "a higher floor." I think I'll need to fight the grief at some point and make sure that I'm living and feeling happy with my life. This situation has brought me opportunities to deepen my friendships and to make new friends, too, and that's a good thing.
The other song I heard was "Seven." For several years, I've had this thing about the number 7 and thinking our family was supposed to have 7 kids. But, after Elle was born and we moved, Rob was resolved that we were done, and after some serious prayer and pondering and time marching on, I became convinced we were done, too.
Now that Elle is not with us anymore and I have this crazy need to "fix" the situation, the thought has crossed my mind several times that I could have our 7th baby. I know it's crazy talk, especially at this stage of grief. But, just playing around with the idea—if I waited for even a year or so and then had a pregnancy, I'd be 44 when the baby was born. Meanwhile, Cam would turn 8. Technically, the baby would be raised as an only child. And the only one to have never known Elle on earth. Pretty isolating for that baby. And what if the baby wasn't a girl? And what if she was? So, having baby number 7 just doesn't seem to work anyway. There's just no "fix" for this situation, and I definitely wouldn't want to bring a baby into the world with the impossible job of filling Elle's void.
Anyway, still trying to make sense of the number 7 as it relates to my family after all these years. So, I heard Prince's song "Seven," and this is what he says:
No one in the whole universe
Will ever compare
I am yours now and u are mine
And together we'll love through
All space and time, so don't cry
One day all 7 will die...
As I became aware many times during our vacation to Hawaii, we are now a party of 7.
And as Prince has pointed out, someday all 7 will die, and then we will be with Elle again.
Fixed!
