Life's rich tapestry - in memory of Greg Crosby

I just found out that my dear friend, Greg, has died suddenly. Greg and I have only met a few times in real life but we chatted endlessly online over the last two years and I knew him well. He was a lovely man and I’m deeply shocked and saddened by his untimely death. My heart goes out to his kids who I know meant the absolute world to him, his parents and his brother. This morning, I wasn’t sure I could run my Monday Morning Motivation group. I wasn’t sure what the point of writing was, or of anything. But I showed up and this is what I wrote. RIP Greg. Friendship takes many forms and Greg will be sorely missed by me and so many other people.

Thank you, Greg, for always being at the end of the phone.

This morning, I want to write about sadness and joy, and about the thing they call life’s rich tapestry. About how sadness and joy don’t sit by side but are intricately woven, threading through each other in a deep, tight weave.

When I was young, the colours were separate: vast expanses of baby blue and sunshine yellow laid side by side. Sadnesses were just flecks that added texture to the fabric. When holes were torn they could easily be patched by a mother’s loving needle and thread. Life spread out in front of me like a blank roll of fabric, a white path waiting for finger paint and footprints.

But gradually, the cloth became patchwork, squares shrunk, and the white expanse was filled with colours. Happiness, sadness, love, loss and grief sitting closer and closer together, smaller and smaller patches. A thread of friendship here, a shimmering patch of gratitude there, the soft warm pink of love still silky to the touch. And loss stitched across it all, embroidered threads creating their own design, irrespective of any plan.

Holes become too big now sometimes to repair, so I stitch around their edges, hoping to make a feature out of loss, not wanting to patch over the people who made up my life.

It’s better this way. Through the holes and the spaces, I can still see the blue sky and if I look behind me the fingerprints and footmarks of the past record the journey.

The roll of fabric looks shorter now. I’ve no way of knowing when it will end. And so I keep filling it with words and acts of love, trying to make a mark, hoping to keep making the most of this precious thing called life.