Into the West...

My return to children's literature continues with The Chronicles of Narnia, that theologically inspired opus of C. S. Lewis.  Last week, reading it quietly as I passed the time in the company of a friend, I was struck by the following line:
"If you have been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you—you will know that there comes in the end a sort of quietness" -C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Theologian or not, the man can write. No doubt about it.
This kind of stillness is not unknown to me.  I felt it some years ago, the morning my father died, the house no longer wracked by his ragged breath, and devoid of the kind souls who had been clustered around us for days in support, who had left us to grieve in silence.  It is a particular quietness, and I remember it well.
Yesterday, as I sat at his grave, contemplating the year that is soon to be no more, I was reminded of that particular quietness.  The cemetery where he is buried is small, and well away from things. It was deserted, and quite still. I felt that sort of quietness again, and somehow, for the first time in what seems a long while, it made me comfortable.
The land of my ancestors is currently being torn by storms, and the pounding of the surf is incessant.  Le Fleuve, often so calm and inviting, is stripping the shores away, reshaping the land.  There is a sense of menace and power that is at odds with the overall peacefulness of the otherwise pastoral setting. It leaves me on edge, a reminder that death walks here too, no matter how comfortable I might feel in the stillness. Very much like someone I know, someone who possesses a certain wild energy, and whose energy sets me on edge the same way the storm does now.  Like the storm, their energy reminds me of that tenuous divide between the quick and the dead. And it reminds me of which side of that line I inhabit. And that is a welcome reminder.
Still, the beauty of this place is profound, storm or no storm. A walk in the woods this morning, with the brilliant green moss only just covered in a layer of snow (no cross country skiing yet, dear reader), left me near speechless.  The barren fields and leafless trees surrounding the cemetery offer their own brand of beauty, as does, of course, Le Fleuve, the mighty St. Laurent. I am lucky, I think, to sit here, in the house my father built and died in, and be able to contemplate the beauty of the land he was born into, and the beauty of life in general.  Lucky indeed, dear reader.