It’s been a tough year

Lots of difficulties this year, including losing people and pets. We also lost Wendell Berry, who wrote this poem:

The Loved Ones, by Wendell Berry

The loved ones we call the dead
depart from us and for a while are absent.  And then as if
called back by our love, they come
near us again.  They enter our dreams.
We feel they have been near us
when we have not thought of them.
They are simply here, simply waiting
while we are distracted among
our obligations.  At last
it comes to us: They live now
in the permanent world.
We are the absent ones.

This one hits close to home in more ways than one.