A month of gains and losses

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
That is how Jeff once began his end of the year thoughts after the closing campfire during a time of reflection.
i am sure that somewhere in history someone stole Jeff's opening thoughts, but we will forgive a work of lesser importants. Now that Jeff is gone, moved on to better home, those words almost sting. Funny, of all the conversations we had, those ring out again to me as though they were his own words and not a play on someone elses.
July was the beginning of a hard summer (well, not the beginning of summer but the beginning of change). i may remember it as the darkest summer of my life to date, but so much revelation and conviction came out of it, not to mention the birth of my daughter, that it wasn't really all bad.
Jeff's transition marked the end of an amazing era. An era with such impact that the funeral had to be arrainged over at least three continents. i mourn our loss, but celebrate our gain from both his life and untimely passing.
My daughter was born four weeks early, and just five days before i was to make a pilgrimage back home to celebrate Jeff's life with a myriad of friends. Then came the worst of times. Adelyn was having health "issues". i use the word issues because they weren't problems perse (they are normal issues for premature kids), but they were enough that she wasn't going to be released from the hospital.
This created conflict because i would have to choose between staying in town, and going home. On the surface the solutions seems an easy one, but there were, and are many underlying plot twists that made it not an easy decision to make.
The readers digest version (or the morale of the story):
i stayed. i am not at peace about quite a bit of this decision, but it was the one that needed to be made. First, because my wife asked me to stay, and i needed to serve her. Second, because my elders thought it wise. There is such a straying from what we see in the early church about obedience to the body and to Christ over our will, that this became a very pivotal reason for my staying. Thirdly, i was in conflict. With no peace about either option sometimes the best thing is to stay where you are. And so it was.
Someone on Myspace had written, "What you live is what you really believe. Everything else is idle chatter."
Powerful, convicting, true. i am a firm believer in the continuity of life beyond what is here and now but i apparently don't live (or haven't lived) as though i really believe it. i know that Jeff lives on, yet i still mourn him and place undo amounts of importance on rituals that focus on death. i mourn totally unnecessarily. i say this because why mourn for one who isn't dead?
If i am mourning for myself, that is selfish, and where is the merit in it?
Certainly this will be a summer to remember, to learn from. The passing of Bob Avila, the passing of Doane, the passing of Steve Irwin (yea, i confess i am a huge fan - but not obsessive), the meeting of Georg and Maida, the birth of Adelyn, the list goes on. . .

On so many levels the time has come to live what believe, and believe what we live.