I don't know if he was quoting someone else or if it was his own line, but the preacher at a funeral yesterday said, "Grief is the great price we pay for the ability to love."

The funeral was for Dana Younce Willis.  The Younce part of her name is very important because as much as she loved and adored her husband, she was a Younce through and through.  I don't know that I have ever met an entire family with a greater capacity to love than them.  Their love for each other is fierce, loyal and protective.  For those of us lucky enough to know them, their devotion to each other becomes an inspiring testament to "family."

That's what makes this so hard.  She was so loved.  And she loved so much.

Dana's death was unexpected, a heart attack.  She was my age.  It's not like I saw her that much;  sometimes even a couple of years would go by but when I would see her (or any of the family for that matter) we just picked up right where we left off. 

I will miss her, yes, but since she wasn't a part of my everyday life, it will be nothing like the grief her husband, Robbie, will feel as he wakes and walks through an empty house every morning.  Or Clara, who shouldn't have to say goodbye to a daughter.  Or George Lane, the brother and only sibling who lived close-by...or the sisters, Gina, Lisa and Tara -- so much alike, so tightly bound together by their enormous admiration for their father and their steadfast commitment to their mother.  (There are others, I know.)

They will miss her most, because they lived in the ebb and flow of each other's lives. 

I have learned much about grief over the past couple of years, but you never really master it.  One thing I have learned is that I would rather my heart be ripped apart by grieving for someone I fiercely loved, than to blissfully live my whole life without ever really knowing how deep, broad and all-consuming love can be.

Grief is the great price we pay for the ability to love.  Okay, then I'll take grief.