The news of Prince’s death made waves over the internet last week. I have to admit to emitting a gasp when I saw it, probably over Facebook or Twitter because that is where I get my news now. He seemed other-worldly, oddly eternal. I was immediately hurtled back through time into my junior high gym, the lights there dim and my body swaying in a slow-dance rhythm. I likely wasn’t dancing with anyone but standing awkwardly by the food table, practicing in case someone asked. But still. These events have a way of hitting us where it hurts, the inner child crying out against our own mortality and irrelevance. It’s like we’re saying goodbye to a part of ourselves: the part that particular celebrity represented, the time of our lives they inhabited and the emotional space they filled. At least that’s what I gather from the endless posts citing Prince’s contribution to the individual lives of people who’d never met him. “How is everyone going to make this about themselves?” a friend texted right before I was about to type the same thing. We all want to matter. And it sucks being reminded of where we’re all headed.

I finally went through the boys’ old clothes last weekend, having stored them in bins and bags and closets and drawers. It was time. Eighteen months’ worth of shorts, pants, shirts, onesies, towels, and all the other accoutrements of babyhood. Little Brother is moving up to a 2T, hovering between clothing measured in months versus years, and though I love a good spring cleaning, this one was a bit of a death. We are so done with the baby business, but closing a chapter–even when you’re ready and sure–is its own complicated goodbye. The Kid is all little boy now, growing taller by the day, his legs and arms devoid of rolls, lengthening out into spindly extensions of him. LB still possesses the round cheeks and outie belly button and thigh terrain that come along with being a baby, not yet a boy, but he too is growing by the day. Sometimes I’ll go to retrieve him from a nap and my breath will be taken away by what two hours of sleep have wrought in his features: he just looks older. It’s inconvenient, because it means I’m older too. Hurling their clothes into the donation bin (okay, watching The Husband do it as I sat in the car) had me feeling like I was leaving a piece of myself there: the long sleepless nights and spit up, sure, but also the days when they would fit inside the crook of my arm. And that hurt a little.

So did our trip to New York, and not just because of the virus. Every time I go back to the city that in so many ways made me, I feel more disconnected from it. The movies I saw filming there are far from new releases now. Our favorite wine bar is on its third incarnation (something about grass-fed beef). And from the 33rd floor of our hotel, I failed to fall asleep to the city sounds that used to lull me into unconsciousness: the horns and brakes and laughter just kept me awake and finally reaching for my ear plugs. Le sigh. The city slips further from my identity every year, even as it will always remain a part of what home is to my heart: grace, and mess, and unexpected gifts.

These goodbyes, these slow ebbs and disconnections, we might as well call them what they are: death. And I’ve thought about it a lot lately, due to speakers at conferences and Oscar “In Memoriam” segments and endless Facebook posts. We are all headed in the same direction: the end.

(How awesome would it be if I just dropped the mic there? Goodbye, cruel world! NO SUCH LUCK.)

I’ve gone through enough endings, though, to know that what Semisonic sang in 1998 still rings true, that every ending is really just a beginning. Because they were just echoing the gospel of grace that has rung true in my own life, that rings true every day: every time I hear TK utter a word, a sentence, a song: there it is, the death of our fear that he would never speak. And it gives rise to a new beginning, of apraxic issues and articulation challenges, but I believe they will one day die too. There’s the death of expectations regarding children, and marriage, and what life should look like versus what it messily and beautifully is. It’s getting harder to hate death, or fear it so much, when all the new life I’ve ever seen comes out of it: death as an avenue for healing, and a door to hope. It may be the craziest part of what I believe, but try and blame me, after what we’ve been through.

TK has recently taken to the Hamilton soundtrack, which is a good thing because it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. His current favorite track, the one he repeats over and over, is “It’s Quiet Uptown.” Guess what it’s about. Near the end of the show, Alexander and Eliza Hamilton mourn the death of their oldest son in the midst of their own preceding estrangement from each other. It’s a song I always skip past because sobbing in public is apparently frowned upon, and even if the carpool line is the most public I get some days, I’d rather not show up there with puffy eyes. But TK loves it, I think because of the piano intro. When that kicks in, a grin spreads slowly across his face and he starts–get this–dancing. Dancing to a sad song. Which seems…inappropriate, until you listen to the words. Until you get to see the whole arc: refound faith, reconnected love. Forgiveness. The tune plays on, and I watch my boy laugh and dance to the strains of death, and life. And through my tears, I smile right along with him. He’s got it right, as usual.