Some things in the world don’t work as I would like them to and I find myself not just having to accept them, but figuring out how to lessen the pain inside me that I can’t have what I want.
I have had a lot of loss. And I’ve had quite a few losses where I wasn’t in close contact with people at the time they died. They were people important to me in some way, but for whatever reason we weren’t in contact when they died. Or they were people who were important to me in some way during one point in my life, but maybe not now. Sometimes I have found out they died when I’ve read the obituaries in the newspaper or when an invitation to a party is returned in the mail.
Those times especially have left me feeling sad that I didn’t get to say goodbye. One particular death had me praying for a period of time, trying to figure out a “place” to put it.
That’s when I realized that sometimes people teach us more after they have died than they did when they were here with us. Don’t get me wrong, I wish they were all here, but, as I said, I don’t get what I want very often. Through what felt like endless questioning and prayer, I finally realized that there is still some way they can be a positive influence in my life. It’s usually with my writing– like maybe the idea for this blog– or something in my fiction.
The key is to keep asking, to stay open, and to keep believing. I do believe everything is for a reason, but we also must be open to that reason. While we don’t always get what we believe we want, there are many other ways that life can fulfill us. Keeping our deceased loved ones close and connected is one of those ways.