Read this and really think about it...from my LJ 4/25/2006t_rayJune 16 2006, 03:13:12 UTC
When we die, it is the end of our physical and tangible communication with the other life forms on this earth. But our coexistance with this world and this life never leaves. When you look at a pictur eof someone who has past, you should not see their death. You should not see their absence. That picture shows them living life...being alive...being. Maybe they are kissing their lover, or lying on the beach or tickling their children or blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. But whatever they are doing, that picture is a piece of evidence that they lived, and are still living in the ways that they have left a mark on each person who remembers them. Each person who saw them blow out the candles or who rubbed aloe on the sunburn or who recieved the kiss. That is so real. And memories, they are not just intangible, one dimensional thoughts. They are another piece of evidence. They are proof that someone is still alive, that their soul and energy still passes through this world. It passes through the butterflies you got when they touched you, or the tears you cried when they fought with you, or the sound of your laughter together. All of those things, tears and laughter and hugs and kisses and singing and whispering, all of it is ALWAYS real and always alive. That, I think, is the miracle of life after death. How can you say that someone is dead, that their soul stopped existing after their heart just happened to stop beating? What about everything that they left, every person that they loved or hated, everything that their life touched that is left affected? A person's influence in this life doens't even begin to go away once their body is buried or their ashes are spread. We are all intellgent thinkers, maybe even scientific skeptics of religion. Well you can set aside religion. Just look at the reality of all of it. The very instant that our presence in someone else's life affects them, we have become immortal. We have ensured that an eternal legacy has been left. And even if that person that we affected dies, they legacy that they leave behind is determined by the people that have influenced them in their lifetime, and so it is a cycle in which our miniscule, blip of a presence on this world is actually eternal. Maybe there is a heaven, maybe there isn't. Or maybe it isn't what we think. But no matter, because I truly believe that our spirit does not die with our body, but lives on in every piece of life on earth that we were a part of.
That is the peace of mind I want to give people who mourn the loss of a friend, or family member. Because, being someone who has lost many people, I believe with every fiber in my being that everything I just said is true and real. I have lived it and felt it and experienced it, and I know that people who are "gone" are never really gone. That is the miracle of life after death. This poem below has always been my favorite poem about death, and now I know why. It symbolizes my entire philosophy. Maybe it was even my inspiration for coming up with all of this. But I'd like to leave it for you to contemplate.
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sun on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die.
That is the peace of mind I want to give people who mourn the loss of a friend, or family member. Because, being someone who has lost many people, I believe with every fiber in my being that everything I just said is true and real. I have lived it and felt it and experienced it, and I know that people who are "gone" are never really gone. That is the miracle of life after death. This poem below has always been my favorite poem about death, and now I know why. It symbolizes my entire philosophy. Maybe it was even my inspiration for coming up with all of this. But I'd like to leave it for you to contemplate.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
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