However painful it is to bid farewell to one who has died,
once you have done so, you can begin a new relationship with them,
one you can always cherish.
Once you release them from earthly time,
you can embrace them in eternity.
When you release them from the physical dimension,
you can hold them close in a dimension no less real: the spiritual one.
For even though they no longer walk beside you,
they will be even closer.
They will be within you.
And you will not forget them, because you cannot forget them.
They will be as near to you as your own breathing,
and as much a part of you as your own dreaming.
They will exist in you as love.
At a funeral I attended last week, the person who gave the "words of remembrance" at the end of Mass read this. I was so struck by it that I asked him where he got it. It comes from a book titled Winter Grief, Summer Grace: Returning to Life after a Loved One Dies by James E. Miller, page 55. Perhaps it will speak meaningfully to you now. If not, perhaps you will remember this post and return to it when you can use it.
4 comments:
Thank you ever so much for sharing this precious quotation.
God bless.
Morgenländer
Definitely a beautiful look into the last phase of our lives, death. I don't see why death needs to be such a negative. It's an ending point, and just like anything that ends, we just don't know quite what will come next.
Thank you for sharing these wonderful words.
Phrased so beautifully, as I surely never could, this has been exactly how I have eventually come to feel about all the loved ones I have lost - after the initial shock and sorrow wore off, of course.
They are all with me. Hardly a day goes by without a pleasant thought or memory.
Thanks for the kind comments.
The book has a lot more as well — reflections by the author as well as numerous quotes from other thinkers. The book is not expensive, and it might be worth the price when one suffers the loss of a loved one.
@ Jacob — At funerals, my former pastor often used the analogy which he found in the writings of Peter Marshall, who had been Chaplain of the U.S. Senate. They suggest that the difference between this life and what is beyond is comparable to the difference between life in the womb and life outside it. And just as an unborn baby would not want to leave the familiar comfort of the womb for the unknown outside, so we don't want to leave this life for what is beyond it. But similarly, just as we would not want to leave everything that is here and return to the confines of the womb, so those in the next life (assuming they're in heaven) would not want to leave their better existence and return to this one.
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