Fragile Edges

Human beings are fragile. This line is lifted from a friend’s slice yesterday and it is stuck in my mind with a hold that is demanding I lift it and lay it down in a slice of my own.

Human beings are fragile. In one moment you are finally watching the long held in the DVR episode of your favorite TV show, and then the world tilts on its axis when you hear of some friends’ broken hearts.

People, I know are rimmed with the most fragile of edges. Those edges start to fold in when the most devastating of news strikes. When a loss takes those edges and powers through to a person’s core, you’d think they’d be done.

But as your heart is breaking for their broken heart, you discover that the fragile parts of us don’t stand a chance against love, comfort, compassion, and faith. Those elements of us join forces and hold our fragile edges together. I’m seeing it first hand.

In their love for a mom and grandma that will always remain strong no matter the distance of time from this loss. In their comfort in her again joining those lost before her, making this family on earth one less, but that family in heaven, one more. In their compassion toward others that are feeling this loss, and you just know they follow the example set forth for them, and they truly mean it. In their faith that shines through every snippet, story, and memory they share with the world.

Their love. Their comfort. Their compassion. Their faith.

Human beings are fragile. But these other forces bolster our fragile edges and somehow bring us the strength to keep going. Maybe even, the fragile edges are where they are so that the power of these forces can break through and bring us peace in the most difficult of times.

For the sake of my friends, I hope this to be true.

I need this to be true.