Desktop Dynamo

There is a headstone in an Irish cemetery with the following inscription: Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

When my mother-in-law, Mary, passed away this past week I took these words to heart. They are simple words, but infinitely wise. They acknowledge that the pain of loss stays with us all of our lives. But these words also remind us that we are all…each of us…a gift to those who love us, and they, likewise are God's gift to us. Though we will pass, each of us, from this earth, we will live on in the memories of those we loved, as they shall in those they loved, and so their children shall, and their grandchildren shall, for as long as people walk this Earth. Those we lose are not truly gone…they will dwell in our hearts forever all the days of our lives.

Someone once said: "…There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go."

Why does it have to be that way? Why is it that the people we love are taken away from us? Why must we experience such deep pain and loss in our lives? Is God being cruel when he takes those we love? Is He punishing us for some sin, real or imagined, when he takes away from us those we cherish the most?

I don't claim any special insight into the Almighty, but I just don't think God works that way.

Perhaps there is another answer. Perhaps death is God's way of telling us that we need to cherish those we love, to take no one for granted, to take joy in every moment our loved ones are here with us, and we are here with them, because tomorrow…tomorrow is a possibility, but not a promise.

When those we love die, a new page is turned in our lives. There will be days that seem emptier somehow…incomplete in some way…because those we love are gone. The brightest summer day will not seem quite as warm…the coolest spring breeze will not be quite as sweet…the bright, burning colors of the trees in Autumn will dim ever so slightly… because they are not here to share these simple joys with us. For those days, take to heart these words by the poet Kahlil Gibran:

…When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.