And now it is Easter.  Resuurection! Renewal!  The new beginning we talked about on Holy Thursday!  (I must interject I went to Good Friday Mass at a different parish and it felt more at home, more reverent.  However, I will continue to “interview” the various “applicants” in the area to make sure I land where I’m supposed to. )

I was cleaning out my computer – another blog on another day for that mind-numbing and astonishing task – but I found a photograph of Half Dome from Glacier Point in Yosemite.  You can also see Nevada and Vernal Falls from that point, and they were putting on a show.   Beyond Half Dome is the “top” of Yosemite, where the smooth white granite looks like a  snowy plain dotted with green trees even in the summer.  It is a wonderful photo that I took on one of my many visits.

Yosemite was one of Terri’s favorite places on earth.  She wanted her ashes spread there, but because she  donated her body to science, they will ultimately be spread in the Pacific Ocean by UCSF in a respectful ceremony that they perform for everyone who gives themselves selflessly to UCSF science.  I put the photograph as my desktop background.  Unlike most desktop photos that I have taken, if I use the stretch-t0-fit mode it looks like something you would see in a house of mirrors.  This panoramic photo needed, if anything, a BIGGER desktop!  It filled the whole screen in proportion.

When I open my computer now, I don’t think of Terri gone.  I think of Terri there.  Yosemite is so huge and so timeless, you can’t help but think of eternity – of the many people over thousands of years who walked there, were here and then gone.  Many times I have talked to God while looking at Half Dome – the answers come fast and furious and seem sure and true.  So when I look at that photo now, I only feel great joy thinking of Terri standing there with me on Glacier Point.

There is this world, and there is the next.  They are all one in the end.  Jesus taught us that, too.  Happy Easter, Terri, I’ll have a piece of my lamb cake for you!