So to all those — like myself — who have lost a Loved One and still feel the pain of that loss, consider a different path … Consider setting aside your reasonable sadness over missing the one you Loved, and replacing your mourning with acts of Kindness done to honor the one you have lost … Consider setting aside your prayers that the departed might “live forever in Heaven” after death, and replacing those brittle hopes with courageous acts of Love that pay homage to the Good Times you were able to share with them beforehand.

Indeed, while no one can speak with any certainty about the nature (or even the existence) of the Hereafter, we can indeed preserve any Soul for eternity in the Good Deeds we do in their name even after they have gone.

And it is in this way, ironically, that we defeat their death most fully. It is in this way that death is suddenly no more the enemy of those departed than our own sleep is the enemy of our ability to serve in gratitude & wonderment once we awaken the next morn.

For as long as we remain true to our own Soul’s Way, we allow the Souls of our lost Loved Ones to continue softly treading their own.

And with this in mind, to all those who have suffered or who are suffering Great Loss, I send my most heartfelt Compassion & my sincerest wishes for Peace …

S

“Love is how we stay alive, even after we are gone.” ~ inspired by Mitch Albom

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”
~ Langston Hughes

P.S. (on grieving) … Initially, it is important to understand that — contrary to popular belief — it is a psychological reality that the more we let our sadness out, the sadder we become. As such, “recognizing” grief by “letting it out” is actually counterproductive to any lasting sense of Healing & Wholeness. In fact, it is the times in our life when we are grieving that our LOVE for others still living is actually available in its most potent form — precisely because these are the times when it is most difficult for us to do so (primarily because we are encouraged to “go within” &/or “express our grief” instead).

As such, it is when we consciously set aside our sadness (or our anger, or our fear) to Care for another that we become not only most powerful, but filled with the greatest sense of Peace as well!

Some will tell you that this is a form of “denial” or “avoidance” or “repression”, and yet this is NOT the case here. I am not advocating ignoring the pain we feel during times of Great Loss — I am offering the alternative of USING that pain to transcend the same; of USING that pain to powerfully alleviate the pain of others — and thereby fully alleviating one’s own pain as well. I have used this technique literally thousands of times over the past ten years of my own life (even after the intensely painful loss of my own dear brother), and so far IT WORKS EVERY TIME!

In conclusion, real LOVE knows nothing of fear or anger or sadness. While all of these emotions are fully reasonable & completely “normal” in times of loss, they are also all fully self-focused, and as such actually PREVENT us from truly LOVING the ones we are apparently mourning during our times of grief … Basically, life is simply too short to waste mired in the myths of “gradual healing” and “healthy mourning” … We all have only a handful of days remaining before we depart as well, so it is wise for us all to get out there and DO AS MUCH GOOD AS POSSIBLE every single day we have left — especially on those days when we are grieving!

P.P.S. (0n the Afterlife) … As long as any human being remains encapsulated within his or her fleshly machine, there is literally no way to objectively know anything with any degree of certainty about either death or what comes thereafter. As such, the only thing I can say about death is that it is the end of the individual personality of the one who has died, and the only thing I can say about what happens afterward is that — one way or another — we are ALL going to be surprised.

This particular question has come up frequently during the past ten years of my life as a Peace Pilgrim, and every time I try to remember to remind folks that every moment spent pondering previous lives or fantasizing about the next one is a moment not spent actively living THIS one!