This must feel like the longest week of your lives. Know that you, Mary Lou, Ciara, and Terra's family have been held close all the while, in my heart and so many others. Love to you all. Kath

This Blessing is from the late Irish poet, John O'Donohue, whose book, "To Bless the Space Between Us," was published after his own untimely death in January. This poem, written for another who was grieving great loss, is taken from that book.

Beannacht
For Josie
(c) John O'Donohue from "To Bless the Space Between Us," Doubleday 2008

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.