REVISITING THE CEMETERY IN THE HEART

When a friend of ours dies…who in our life has played a part it is with the deepest sorrow we add thier tombstone to the cemetery in our heart. Why her? Why him? Why now? We asked ourselves as we desperately try to cope for a while we are thrown off balance…our life is out of focus…we lose our hope. There is no right or wrong way to confront death…despite what the experts say we’ll struggle through our sorrow…our grief…and all the while we will pray for strength and courage and guidance as we solemnly whisper their name knowing the life we knew up to this point…will never be the same. It’s as if death has infected our bodies in an instant…overnight… and our world…once awash in color…has turned to black and white. At first their memories are fresh…and our sorrow may paralyze… but then while cloaked in sadness…we begin to realize they would not want us to remain sad forevermore… and we try to go on living…the way we lived before. Slowly with the help of our family and our friends…the healing process begins and over time, with their help, the color seeps back in. And we find a place for those we lost in our memories next to the memories of others who in our life played a part where we can visit them as often as we like…in the cemetery in our heart. It’s a quiet, solemn place that has no complement…no parallel the final resting place where our memories go to dwell. Where we can walk among them any hour…any minute of any day. Where the ones we’ve lost forever…are never far away. We never know when our grief will end and when the healing process will start But we can take some solace knowing their memories will always have a quiet place to rest in the cemetery in our heart.