At home.

Today our country is mourning - mourning the deaths of twenty innocents in Connecticutt yesterday - and we hurt for and with the parents and families left in shock. ** This morning I wake up in a familiar hotel room in Jim's home town in California. We have stayed here many times since 1974 and even slept a few nights in this very room. I feel warm and comforted being here. Its as though I have stepped back in time - - I am home. Amazingly, Jim is here. ** Last night Robin and I had dinner in the restaurant downstairs with his brother, sister-in-law, sister and brother-in-law. We share the deep bond of loving Jim. Even when we are not talking about him we feel the connection. ** I was afraid of coming here. Afraid I would be overhelmed by grief and emotion. I am overwhelmed but its by the love and connection to Jim. Family. ** Dispite his own illness, Jim's brother came to visit Jim several weeks before he died. They sat together in our make-shift hospital room at home, saying little, feeling lots. I realized last night that Tom had not felt closure until we came and we could sit together. The same with his sister, who was too ill to travel. ** We will meet this morning to share Mass at San Joachim's where we have all prayed together and where we were all together for the funerals of Jim's parents and his sister. I know it will knit us still closer as we finally share prayers for Jim. ** One afteroon last February when he was in Sibley hospital, Jim fell silent. When I asked what he was thinking about he answered, "I am just wondering where you will be ten months from now." ** Now we know. ** Here in Madera - with him. ** As much as I feel my grief comforted this morning my thoughts circle back to the grieving parents of the innocent children in Connecticut -- just starting on their journey. I think of my daughter Gretchen who died when she was three years old- remembering walking that path and I pray for them. ** God Bless them with the strength to find their peace and comfort.