The permanence of death is beyond comprehension, but death itself is a natural part of life!

How do we face the inevitable? With grace and light, struggling through our pain in faith there is a better world? Or do we see nothing but a bleak end with no rhyme or reason? Nobody lives forever! We all know this, we all understand the essential contract of life but when faced with the permanent loss of a loved one, on the face of things, there is no real comfort. Grief is something which has to be moved through in it's own time. Life can be cruel, seemingly meaningless, tragedy can strike at any moment, nothing is certain. How can we then rationalize loss and the despair this brings? How can we quell the distress, the grief, when tragedy strikes, when someone so precious is taken from us into a realm, or an existence, perhaps a nothingness, we just can't understand? For those with faith in our eternal soul, in the idea that God is love and there is a meaning to life, the process, while still hard, is not so hard as it is for those who see no purpose. The rights and wrongs of this dichotomy have been debated through the ages but this is poor comfort when confronted by an immeasurable loss, when it is your loved one taken away, when there could have been so much more life.

This post would be easy to write if I confined myself to a chosen audience of people who share the idea that our souls are eternal, that life has meaning and expands beyond this earthly realm, that in fact there really is no death, just transformation, that the pain and misery of tragedy can be washed away in the loving embrace of knowledge about what we truly are! In this mindset, while it doesn't make it any easier, the tools are there to overcome and move through. I do believe these things but have also felt the pain of loss. In the end belief and faith are awesome tools but not everyone fits into this category and there is simply no handbook, no hard and fast scientifically proven set of principles which could make the whole concept of a "forever end"practical and easy to digest. There is however heart knowing. A very private and personal understanding of how we deal with the concept of death and from there how we translate our feeling when tragedy strikes and we lose a loved one.

Moments of death, tragedy and loss are not a time for rational, scientific processes, they are a time for the heart!

In this way I would encourage anyone who is confronted by the terrible circumstance of tragedy to let go of any fixed mental definitions. Let the mind rest and allow the heart knowing to rise, Be at peace in your own faith about what the meaning of life and death could be, allow yourself the space just to feel, to open your heart, to know there just may be a loving purpose behind the misery.

Death is much easier to handle when our loved one has lived a full life, when in their twilight years they gently decline. We can rationalize this as the natural progression of things, while it might not make the permanence of the loss easy to bear, the tragedy is not there. It is confronting in terms of facing our own mortality but not overwhelmingly so. It is however a very different story when we lose a person in the prime of their lives, or a child, taken suddenly by this or that cause. What comfort is there here? What can one possibly say to ease such pain and shock? There are no words in this situation. There is nothing one can say but there are actions, there is care, there is love. These simple emotions are the tools we have, the only real things we can employ, and within their simple existence we do have strategies to allow the cycle of grief to unfold.

This is a cruel and temporary world on so many levels. A world into which we come so full of promise but one where a simple wrong turn, or bad decision or tragedy cast in from some unknown outside force can have lasting consequences. Every day we see the fruits of malice and lack of care. Every day we can watch the silent tragedies of war, of man made famine, of pestilence bought about by our own foolish actions. Children playing in the path of bombs, children bereft of family cast out into the streets. Disease and seemingly incurable suffering all around us, like a plague of nasty intent, human cruelty, the cold final hand of death is never far away. Nothing is certain in this life. For me, having faith in a loving God and so a loving purpose for us all, even that child who dies suddenly and without a voice, does bring me strength. It serves for me to see I must strive to be the best person I can, to have as positive an impact as I can even though I have not always been so strong, or centered in this concept. Even though my actions have often left a lot to be desired when held up to this mirror. Such a faith is not immeasurable, it is quantifiable, there are solid reasons for me to hold these beliefs but it is not one size fits all.

Having lost many good friends over the years, having had the tragedy of premature death thrust into my life on more than one occasion I have found strength in the idea of soul purpose. My knowing tells me I will see these souls again, in our true home, far from this temporary place and my hope is I will take the love of this world with me when I go and not the misery. Never was the concept of death bought home to me more than when I nursed mum at home in her final months. We had plenty of time to discuss what was happening, we both knew she was dying, there was no beating around the bush. It wasn't like I could just deal with it in little bites, going to a hospital or hospice for a quick visit, be saddened by it all then leave putting it to the back of my mind. It was an all the time thing, an inescapable truth, a morning to night understanding and it helped to have faith and talk about death. It helped to know that no matter where she was going the inevitable truth was I was going there too, not far behind her in the grand scheme of things. Mum wasn't afraid of dying, she was stoic and approached her demise with a calculated acceptance but there were many moments of weakness and understandably so. There is no rule-book! We are left to wonder at the mystery. Like birth, we are left to wonder from where does this new soul come? For what purpose? How is it some children can seem so wise? In death the questions become, where does this soul go? Is death just a blank empty place, once gone you are gone forever? What becomes of the wisdom gained in life?

It is an uncomfortable truth that life is fleeting here on earth, nothing lives forever. Grappling with concepts of meaning and faith defines the biggest questions we are confronted with. Purpose is the most difficult concept we face. What is the purpose of life? At the end of the day these intellectual concepts fade in importance, feeling comes to the fore. Great political or philosophical question lose their power, we are always left with feeling, with our heart knowing, with our own personal interpretation of what is good. Love is the greatest of all emotions, it is rewarding, uplifting. liberating. We can not dwell in anger or hate and expect to find fulfillment. We may be stuck in judgement, living our lives solely through projections of others, in such a state can we truly say we are happy? How do we find happiness again after terrible loss? Meaning becomes important when considering these questions. Love becomes important when everything in our lives is laid bare, when all that we have striven to be is stripped down to basic elements and we are left with nothing but the shell of who we thought we were. Love then becomes the torch which lights our way.

Grief is a function of love...

Grief is indeed a time of disconnection from the outside world but it needn't be the totality of what we will become. In grief we are being given a new goalpost, a new way to see the world and are challenged to reconsider what we decide to do with what little time we have left in the light of these changed circumstance. Herein lies the rub, what do we do with our love once we have decided to stop burying it in grief? Once we know we need to move on from the grieving process, what actions can we take to bring meaning to the memory of the loss? Honoring the memory of our loved ones can then become a liberating process. What lessons have we learned from our tragedy? What new light is upon our eyes and how has this shifted our perception of the world? In time we find ways to dig deeper, in time our inability to function through grief will pass but we will never be the same again. Many people turn their grief into positive change by reaching out to others in selfless acts, as if to give tangible expression to the fact their loved one lived, they were here, their life and death had meaning, they will not be forgotten. Such benevolent action is indeed a tangible way to move forward, it is engaging, allowing us to explore our own concepts of faith in the light of shared experience. Many, many good things have happened in the world because people have chosen to move through their grief in this way.

Our world is now moving in a very dangerous and frightening direction, there will be much death, much sorrow. How can we make sense of this? How can we live free of fear when fear itself has become normal? Freedom from fear has a lot to do with acceptance of death and a willingness to live despite the odds. It has to do with what side of the coin we cast our lot, how we are willing to extend ourselves for the betterment of not only our personal dignity but also our community. It has to do with seeing the limitations around us and while recognizing the dangers they impose, not being defined by them. Being bigger than fear means being open to love no matter the consequence, questioning the status-quo pushing back against limiting concepts without getting caught up in the struggles of the limitations themselves. It is not a new thing, war, depravity, disease, other real things to fear have been with us always. Life can be fleeting and short, for so many people their lives are cut off way to soon. What are we left with? What can we do? Grief is a process and it will pass but the circumstances of fear are something we can change, to make the world a better place for the kids and in so doing to honor the memory of our loved ones, the lessons they gave, the love that we feel.