When I was in high school three boys got themselves lost on the biggest local river. They made the rookie river mistake, nearly fatal, of thinking high water looked strangely calm and fun. They put in, in a canoe. Two days later, no one could find them. The story has a happy ending. They lost the boat, everything they had with them, and I think maybe a lot of their clothing. But they managed to grab ahold of a tree and climb it. The spent a long cold night in that tree before they were found. They were friends and our community had already lost several teenagers in drinking and driving accidents. We collectively held our breath, our hearts, and each other as we waited for those boys to be found.

I was waiting that day in the nearest gas station when one of The Mothers, a mother of one of the lost boys, walked in. She was crying for him, calling his name. "Where is Woody? Where is by baby?" I will never forget it. Looking back on that memory now, as a mother myself, is rending. Even knowing her son was at that moment relatively safe, if not yet found. He is a surgeon and a father now.

Many years later I walked into that same woman's office seeking advice. She was a wise therapist and I needed help. My best friend had just been diagnosed with a fatal cancer. I couldn't figure out how to manage my grief while still parenting. I didn't know what the boundaries are for a situation such as profound grief while parenting, protracted slow grief, at that.

She was so grandmotherly and warm and sympathetic. The exact same thing had happened to her as she parented through the cancer of a beloved friend. She told me it was going to be okay. She told me knitting helps. She introduced me to Pema Chodron. And she gave me a curious image. She told me about a mother pig she once saw that was covered in little baby pigs. The little pigs crawled all over their mother, nursing, rooting, scrambling, squealing, playing and napping. While the mother lay perfectly still, resting. She told me to rest with my grief near my children so they could see me and be with me and not be afraid.

So I like to think of myself sometimes as a big fat pink mother pig, in the moment, with my children, not dishonest that life does occasionally hurt. Woody's mother died this week. She was a great woman.