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Life and Death & Cyber Shadows January 3, 2014

Posted by nrhatch in Life Balance, Mindfulness, People.
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_0001cLife and death go hand in hand.  Like light and shadow, it’s impossible to have one without the other.  Loving others means letting go.

* Sorrow is the price we pay for joy. ~ Shadowlands

Life Goes On

When my dad died last year, I cried.  But I never stopped laughing.

“Life goes on” became my mantra.

The expression reminds me that it’s OK to laugh every day . . . even if someone we love has just died.

“Life goes on” reminds me to allow JOY to resurface sooner rather than later.

If we stand still in silence . . . happiness finds us.  No pursuit required.

The tighter we hang on to the sorrows of life, the longer we hang on to the heart-ache.  “Life goes on” reminds me that its OK to let go of the pain.

I don’t find the expression glib or a measure of indifference.  And I don’t think it’s used only by those who haven’t lost someone near and dear to them.

Who would that be, anyway?

Cyber Shadows

Have you ever lost a casual friend or acquaintance whose shadow remains in the cyber corridors you frequent . . . vestiges and traces left behind on Facebook walls and orphaned blogs?

Leaving author-less blogs and Facebook pages intact as “memorials” provides people with a place to pay their “last respects” and share messages of condolences.

Last year, a Facebook “friend” died.  I don’t remember now how our cyber paths crossed the first time, but we had never met face to face.

I learned of her passing when a stream of condolences arrived in my News Feed.

Curious, I swung by her FB page and scrolled down.  Someone who had known her in the real world had shared news of her death.  After reading the thread of condolence messages from people I didn’t know and would never meet, I echoed their parting sentiments, clicked “unfriend,” and left her FB page for the last time.  I didn’t see any reason to maintain a link to her cyber shadow under the circumstances.

But it felt odd to “unfriend the dead.” 

How I Choose To Remember

Life is not about stopping the rain from falling, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Anything that works for us, works (even if others prefer to wear their grief like a perpetual black cloak to block out the sun).

I no longer pay my “last respects” by viewing dead bodies in open caskets.

I want to remember my dearly departed as they were ~ vibrant and alive.

* On with the dance!  Let joy be unconfined. ~ Lord Byron

Aah . . . that’s better!

Related posts:  In Memoriam ~ WordPress Blogger Bryan Edmondson (Eric John Baker) * Life Goes On (Candid Impressions) * Paying Death Taxes  (Andra) * Facebook Quandary ~ What Do You Do When A Friend Dies? (Footprints in the Sand)