esrosedotblog

A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

When some loved one dies, a space opens up.

The slowly emerging realization that their space will never again be filled is astounding.

It is as profound and awesome as looking at the stars or thinking about the ocean depths.

The mind cannot comprehend it.

We do heal from grief. Time is the great physician.

But the emptiness of the space continues.

Though one grows used to it, there is no compensation.

It is pure and constant loss.

We know that death is a part of life. Each death reminds us of our limited time in this form, on this planet, in this lifetime.

I have no strong beliefs in other forms or other lifetimes. I flirt with the various notions that man has constructed to soothe his feelings about death; its absoluteness.

Fundamentally, I only know the space that is left.

Times such as these remind us our own mortality; our own uncertainty about its meaning.

I sometimes think of the space that I will leave.

I know that I will be mourned. I believe that I will be remembered for awhile.

I also know that a time will come when no one will remember my name or what I did here.

That too is a vast incomprehension. The ego strives for more assurance.

But, there are no answers to the great mystery that awaits all of us.

We will lose loved ones and be left with the space.

We will be lost to all our loved ones and leave a space.

I like what Marcus Aurelius has to say about death.

Death, like birth, is one of nature's mysteries, the combining of primal elements and dissolving of the same into the same. Nothing about death should shame or upset us, for it is entirely in keeping with our nature as rational animals and with the the law governing us.

Book Four—The Emperors Handbook; a new translation of The Meditations by C. Scot and David V. HIcks.