After the loss of so many of my loved ones, and coming so close to death myself on several occasions, I now see death as a new beginning to learning and to loving rather than a waste, a destruction, or a suffering hardly to be endured. So often we forget that life is a gift and loved ones are special gifts lent to us from on High, for a time. We unite with the spirit of our loved ones through prayer and silence. If we reach out to the Author of love and ask for help to live without selfishness and to deepen our awareness and our compassion towards all others, then we can emerge from a sea of grief, from the inevitability of tragedy and the losing of love. It is essential to learn to laugh and love again.
~ from THE VOICE OF SILENCE by Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo
I had no idea that the gate I would step through
to finally enter this world
would be the space my brother's body made. He was
a little taller than me: a young man
but grown, himself by then,
done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,
rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold
and running water.
This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.
And I'd say, What?
And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.
~ Marie Howe from "The Gate" in WHAT THE LIVING DO
