Honestly Beautiful

Craig Ferguson's mother, Janet, died on December 1st. His first show since her death was last night and he chose the path of honesty. It wasn't a laugh riot show but it was quite funny. Apparently Ferguson spoke to his sister Lynn about whether or not a tribute show was appropriate and together they concluded that there might be other people trying to get through the first set of holidays without someone they love (like me) and by sharing his experience he'd let them know they were not alone. I wept throughout the show, of course, but I came away with two things that I thought were especially important to share.
Chi McBride was the guest and he led off by saying two things to Craig. One of those things was this, "We all are here for you and although we didn't experience the same loss, we're here for you man and if you want to take us with you that's fine and if you don't we'll be here when you get back." That's exactly what I feel we're supposed to do when someone we love loses someone they love. It's what I try to do with varying degrees of success. I wish I'd been able to articulate it so elegantly.
Just before the close of the show Ferguson read the piece he'd read for his mother's funeral. It's a poem by Henry Van Dyke and he read it as it lay in context in Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea. I've never heard this poem before and I love the metaphor of it and it's perfection for funeral reading. I sorely wish I'd known about it when my grandfather died. My favorite line is, "Her diminished size is in me, not in her."

You can say that again.