I glanced at the calendar this morning. I don’t really need to do that to know what day is near.  Each year I begin to feel it permeate my thoughts for weeks before.  I need no calendar for that purpose 

It’s been a few years since a friend of mine left this earth. Among my circle of family and friends, we have had time to experience life without that precious presence.

There’s not much of anything you can do about it when a person’s time is up. Obviously, you can mourn.  You can stop living yourself.  Or, you can decide to do your best to carry on.  But you are not the keeper of time or extender of life.  You have no input or vote on that.

But then you ask yourself:

You need an answer for that, so you dig into your psyche and you try to reach into your heart and you can find nothing that really explains why it happened and what you are supposed to do about it.

Then, with time, comes the answer.  In a moment of clarity and perception you understand the simplicity of that answer.

Your job is to continue on without them.  Maybe you can make a memorial to them; perhaps continue a legacy they began; you can live your life…that’s all.  The choices are few but it’s evident the only plan left for you is to honor the person with a permanent place in your thoughts allowing and not rejecting those thoughts.  It’s not a bad thing to think about a person who is no longer breathing on this earth.

I’ve discovered one way to honor your loved one is to talk about that person.  Think about that person.  Tell your family about that person.  Especially tell your children about that person.  Share with someone else who knew them in a different way and you’ll have a new light shed on the person you loved.  It’s OK to have all those feelings because you still love them.  That doesn’t have to die–it can live on in you and those with whom you share your memories.

The only way I’ve been able to make it through such losses is to remember the good things, and time itself takes care of the bad things–they begin to move to the rear of your thoughts.  Oh, sure, you can harbor them and hang on to them but to what end?  That is no honor to your lost one.

When the thought of their absence is so real it hurts, that’s okay, too!  Spend a moment in that thought…and then think about another time, another memory, another story.  Perhaps a smile will cross your face or you might even laugh out loud at what seemed a silly thing back then.  Allow yourself those beautiful and funny thoughts…that’s okay too.

That’s what I’ve learned from experience.  My hope for you is that you find people around you who allow you to talk about your loss and your feelings.  I hope you have special memories that become more precious now that they have been entrusted to you to keep.  That’s a big job…to keep the good of a person going.  But you can do it—with love, hope, prayer, faith.  Then trust in all the memories you have to become the stories for others and create that as the legacy for your loved one.

If you are reading this and you have lost a friend or loved one, I am sorry for your loss.

From Broken

   To Healing

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     If you need more help than you’ve been able to find, 
there are professional people for you. Look around your 
community for churches or organizations that offer counseling,
or call your local hospital or contact your minister/rabbi/priest.
     For those related to a military member/veteran, contact
your local Veteran's Affairs office or your military base 
commander/chaplain.
     Here are three organizations online where you can find 
help immediately.

http://www.onlinegriefsupport.com/

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/find-support-groups