Of this I am as certain as anyone can be who hasn’t actually died: life goes on beyond this body. It goes on in a way we can’t imagine, because we don’t remember it. We are fixated on life on this earth, when really, life is so much bigger. We don’t “die”– simply transition.
And even though I believe this, I do grieve. And I grieve hard. I grieve the missing presence of beloved family and friends, and I grieve them whether they have transitioned out of this life or they are still here but have left my life in some way. I grieve what has been lost, I grieve what was and what could have been.
No shame in grief and for me, it’s a messy thing.
But here’s the thing: no matter how someone is lost to us, they are still with us, as this beautiful piece by Nicholas Evans
Walk Within You
If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Clear your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.
~From The Smoke Jumper, by Nicholas Evans
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So beautiful. I also believe there’s so much more than we know. Thanks for this reminder.
Beautiful, and perfect to read after coming back from a visit to my parents’ grave. Thanks!
That’s a beautiful poem.