Carry
It Forward
“...there
is something indestructible at the center of each of us; though the
pain of being transformed and rearranged while still alive often
feels unbearable.”
Mark
Nepo (The Book of Awakening)
A
friend of mine lost his younger brother yesterday. His death came
without warning and left his family spinning in shock and loss. It's
fairly amazing to me that, after all these decades of life, death can
still surprise me. We humans seem to believe it is a diabolical
mistake; a misstep in the act of creation. Death might claim
strangers, but not someone we love.
Intellectually,
we know the people we love will die, as will we. But wrapping our
heads around life without them is another matter all together.
Suddenly, there is a hole in our hearts that seems vast and
unnavigable. If we have never known life without that person, then we
must recreate ourselves with no instruction manual. It's sailing on
uncharted seas; a venture we didn't ask to take, to a place we never
wanted to go.
Very
often, we learn that within, we are more indestructible than we ever
imagined. We must grieve, of course, and we must celebrate the life
of our loved one. And, in the midst of pain, we begin anew. We take the
material left us, and put it together in a new way. We will not be
the same. We will bear the scars of that loss forever. But we will
gather our strength and carry on because that's what humans do. And
that indestructible part of us will take up a little piece the life
our loved one lost, and carry it forward with us.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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