Welcome to the Commune podcast. This is Jeff Krasno. Many of you may receive my weekly

Sunday commusing article where I address a breadth of issues from the spiritual to the sociopolitical.

And on occasion, I will record an audio version of these articles and release it as a bonus episode.

This week's missive is penned and read by pianist and meditation teacher, Murray Hittery.

A grief is something we all go through at some point in life.

We don't choose grief, it chooses us. The question is, how will we

deal with it when it arrives at our doorstep? This is Murray's story of loss and recovery titled,

It Happened in My Rear View Mirror. Untangling Grief Through Music by Murray Hittery.

I saw it happen in my rearview mirror.

Only hours earlier, a group of us were riding along the coastline of Cape Town South Africa.

We rode by dramatic sandbluffs and turquoise waters with wild ostriches running alongside.

I remember Mariel, my sister, giggling ecstatically,

and I kept looking over at her because,

even as she was enchanted by the otherworldly landscape,

for me, she was the greatest wonder of all.

Her smile beaming from behind her orange helmet, the one

she picked at the motorcycle shop, because orange was her favorite color, it symbolized

vibrancy. She had opted to ride with our friend Eric, who, with his strong but sensitive

appearance, was a more enticing driver than the frankly less cool option

of her older brother. At the end of this glorious day, only minutes from our hotel, the

accident happened. I pulled over and ran back to her. What came into my view was disbelief. It was the unimaginable.

It took an instant. She was 23.

...