With Mother's Day just passing, and looking ahead to Father's Day, I have a nagging sense that I am alone in this world. It's not true, of course. I do have family, albeit spread all over God's green Earth – from Florida to New York to California, and many parts in between. And I have friends far and wide and friends near and dear. But there's something about being without your parents that is disconcerting.

My mother often said that losing one parent is hard, but losing the other is a whole new "ball of wax." I quite agree. If I had questions about my father after he died, I could always ask my mother. What would Dad have thought of such-and-such? Did Dad like such-and-such? Did Dad know so-and-so? And so on. And Mom always had the answer. Now who do I ask? And who do I ask about my mother? I suppose I could ask her siblings, but somehow that just isn't the same. Oh, I do take comfort in being able to sit with my Aunt Donna – who is so VERY much like my mom – and just sort-of soak-in the "Joyce-ness" of her. And reminiscing about days gone by indeed reveals things to me about my mom that I never knew. And here, I think is the answer to this whole business of feeling like an orphan. We band together with others who have suffered the same or similar losses, and we find comfort.

Something like this must have happened among Jesus' followers after His ascension. They had traveled, lived, ate, slept, studied, with Him, for as much as three years for some of them. He had become their life, and now that life was gone. How they must have missed their daily interaction with Him! Think of Mary, His mother. Her baby was gone. How it must have comforted her to sit with His disciples, His apostles, especially Peter, James and John, the inner circle. They must have commented about His laugh, His smile, His touch, His warm and winning ways, His conviction, His awesome power as the very Son of the living God. And how blessed were these men to have Jesus' own mother in their midst! The stories she must have shared about His childhood – how the angel announced His coming, what He was like as a baby, how He grew as a small child, the things He said and did as a teenager, and so on. What a blessing that would be! Wouldn't you love to sit and chat with Mary for an hour!? I know I would.

So, too, may we – and we do! – gather together to speak of those things that we share in common with our Savior. What a blessing to be able to hear each other's stories about what Christ has done and continues to do for each of us. What a privilege to kneel together at His table, receiving together His own body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins and the strengthening of our faith. And so we find that we are not really orphans after all.