Dear Ashby,
Your dad used to say, 'He's just sleeping,' if we were watching a movie that showed someone dead lying there to make me feel better. When you and I play you often say that you got killed but your story always contains your return to life. Oh, how I wish that were true and that you would never realize that death isn't temporary.
We have recently lost some family and friends and how wonderful it would be if they would return to us. How wonderful it would be if we could have stopped time when we were singing Delta Dawn on the front porch, or when parents laid eyes on their children for the first time, or when we would gather together in a backyard and share our family's signature recipes as we enjoyed eachother's stories of the past and present. How wonderful it would be to sit on a lawn chair and catch up while the second and third cousins laugh and play around us. How wonderful it would be to hear stories again told by voices we will so dearly miss.
When someone leaves us, neither pagan nor Pope can know with certainty their fate. Human compassion for our fellow man in the name of God (and for it's own sake) is limitless. We cannot think that God's compassion could be less our own. It's possible that the rules man has interpreted as God's law could be the same as a young child's understanding of gravity. Isn't there room for more humility in our mortal interpretation? The pain of loss and mourning is enough to bear, there's no question for me that we all return home. You may interpret 'home' as you wish, Son.
We come in and leave this world touching the hearts of so many people around us. There are beloved family members that you never got to meet and some that died before you were old enough to remember them. It's impossible to know how long we'll have the gift of their company. When we lose someone our thoughts always return to our time with them like movies in our minds. The pain is ours to bear, their pain has ended. Is it possible through this pain to celebrate them?
What more can we do but remember that smile and laugh? Remember the times you were there for each other when things weren't so good and times their existence made things better. Remember the love given and received and all of the reasons that endeared them to us. Maybe all that we can do is make sure the time with have with those who are beside us now is something we can look back on and celebrate. And through the pain of loss lean on each other and know the pain is shared just as the love.
I hope it will be a very long time before you have think about these things. I hope you won't find out for a very long time that these days we live together now will one day be in the past. But, if there's anything I want to know about death and loss, it is that love will always remain as brilliant and real as it is right now.
I love you,
Mom
Your dad used to say, 'He's just sleeping,' if we were watching a movie that showed someone dead lying there to make me feel better. When you and I play you often say that you got killed but your story always contains your return to life. Oh, how I wish that were true and that you would never realize that death isn't temporary.
We have recently lost some family and friends and how wonderful it would be if they would return to us. How wonderful it would be if we could have stopped time when we were singing Delta Dawn on the front porch, or when parents laid eyes on their children for the first time, or when we would gather together in a backyard and share our family's signature recipes as we enjoyed eachother's stories of the past and present. How wonderful it would be to sit on a lawn chair and catch up while the second and third cousins laugh and play around us. How wonderful it would be to hear stories again told by voices we will so dearly miss.
When someone leaves us, neither pagan nor Pope can know with certainty their fate. Human compassion for our fellow man in the name of God (and for it's own sake) is limitless. We cannot think that God's compassion could be less our own. It's possible that the rules man has interpreted as God's law could be the same as a young child's understanding of gravity. Isn't there room for more humility in our mortal interpretation? The pain of loss and mourning is enough to bear, there's no question for me that we all return home. You may interpret 'home' as you wish, Son.
We come in and leave this world touching the hearts of so many people around us. There are beloved family members that you never got to meet and some that died before you were old enough to remember them. It's impossible to know how long we'll have the gift of their company. When we lose someone our thoughts always return to our time with them like movies in our minds. The pain is ours to bear, their pain has ended. Is it possible through this pain to celebrate them?
What more can we do but remember that smile and laugh? Remember the times you were there for each other when things weren't so good and times their existence made things better. Remember the love given and received and all of the reasons that endeared them to us. Maybe all that we can do is make sure the time with have with those who are beside us now is something we can look back on and celebrate. And through the pain of loss lean on each other and know the pain is shared just as the love.
I hope it will be a very long time before you have think about these things. I hope you won't find out for a very long time that these days we live together now will one day be in the past. But, if there's anything I want to know about death and loss, it is that love will always remain as brilliant and real as it is right now.
I love you,
Mom
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