Timing is Something

I was going to title this "Timing is Everything", but in reality, it is not. However, there are certain times when you see or read something at the exact moment that you need it the most. I'm reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light, and although it's a young reader's book, it contains so many important lessons and I've been savoring the little time that I find to indulge in reading it. Vicky, the main character who is being courted by three very different and unique young men, is also grappling with death all around her. She happens to be a poet, and wrote this poem that I read and reread over and over again because my heart was singing with gratitude that this page in this book fell into my line of vision right when I needed it to.

The earth will never be the same again.
Rock, water, tree, iron, share this grief
As distant stars participate in pain.
A candle snuffed, a falling star or leaf, 
A dolphin death, O this particular loss
Is Heaven-mourned; for if no angel cried, 
If this small one was tossed away as dross,
The very galaxies then would have lied.
How shall we sing our love's song now
In this strange land where all are born to die?
Each tree and leaf and star show how
The universe is part of this one cry,
That every life is noted and is cherished,
And nothing loved is ever lost or perished.