Maybe I'm in shock because so many are gone, because I don't cry much when I lose another loved one. One of my friends recently had a loss. Their friend's dog died. My friend loved the dog like it was their own. When they told me that the dog had lost its battle, I sent a condolence card the next day. We talked yesterday. They wanted to thank me for the card, for understanding what the loss meant. We talked about what's to come, not just for our beloved pet friends, but ourselves. We both believe that the temple that encloses our spirit isn't the important thing about us. Our spirits are, and we both believe our spirits will live on after we shake loose from these oh so vulnerable bodies.
Carl Sagan said we are made of star-stuff. All of the atoms that make up are bodies come from the universe. And when our physical body dies, all of those bits and pieces return to the universe. Our spirits will live on and so will our physical forms. But we are free of pain and sorrow that the death of the physical body brings us and our loved ones.
In the meantime, we try to find ways of coping with the heartache of saying goodbye. One of the things that has gotten me through recent deaths is realizing that people around me loved the departed as much as I did, in a relationship that was the center of a universe they shared. We need to comfort each other and affirm the love we each feel and the loss we each feel. Helping each other in times of loss helps each of us find a way to get through to bottomless sorrow loss generates.
This little bit of obscure Greek mythology gave me a lot of comfort as I thought about all of the many souls who are traveling on: Asphodel Meadows-in Greek mythology, the afterworld reserved for people who did no great harm or or great good. The souls would live there for 1000 years, and then would have their memories erased by drinking from the River Lethe, and then returned to the world to live again.
There is no easy way through, and most of us seel endlessly for ways to get away from feeling the darkness of grief. But if we didn't feel the grief, how could we feel the joy?
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