someone we loved so much has died here
is a set of thoughts we might turn over
in our minds to soften our grief and
accompany our tears
we're often under subtle pressure to
just get over what has happened and then
to move on with our lives but we will
never get over our loss in any simple
way we won't ever forget or naively
recover and crucially we don't have to
the depth of our grief is simply the
price we pay for the extent of our love
we can feel an acute pressure to speak
well of the dead and we want above all
to express love and respect but we can
admit without any guilt that the dead
are no different from the living
they were as we are beautifully flawed
and fascinatingly complicated our
relationship to the dead had ambiguous
sides of course it did there were
frustrations and disappointments
misunderstandings that couldn't be put
right resentments and anxieties and
tantalizing hopes that were never quite
fulfilled our relationship to them was
like this because this is the nature of
all human loves it's not a denial of
love because love involves closeness and
closeness is necessarily intricate
ambivalence isn't a refusal of love it's
a consequence of the profoundest kind of
love
we may feel we didn't always love them
as we now wish we had there were things
we didn't do or things we wish we hadn't
done things we'd change if only we could
we don't have to worry
most of what we needed to say made its
way to them indirectly we didn't have to
put it explicitly into words at a
pivotal moment they knew or guessed they
didn't say everything either
it's just how human relationships
function we don't have to spell
everything out because we do so much of
the work in our own minds they
understood that there was sufficient
love and the proof of that is that we're
thinking of them now
a word on immortality the moment when
someone dies is not when their body
ceases to exist but when the last person
whose life was touched by them dies on
this basis they have so long still left
to live because they continue to survive
within us the conversation with them
goes on without end in our own minds
they will be with us through many things
that have not yet happened through so
many dilemmas and joys and sorrows
still to come our love can do strange
things it can produce fears that the one
we've lost might be feeling abandoned
might be in pain somewhere might be
feeling alone and dejected that we are
currently letting them down or failing
to look after them we mustn't worry they
are not unhappy
they are properly at peace they don't
need us now they don't blame us for
anything they are not angry with us we
cannot hurt or disappointment and they
don't resent us for being alive it may
be frightening to die it is not
frightening to be dead but they are
genuinely at peace
we will never forget them but we will
live tomorrow and the next day this is
not in gratitude or callousness its
loyal to the values that we shared with
them we can live on and still be
faithful to everything they meant for us
it's not an attack on love to endure and
to love again love once what's good for
the other love once there to be more
love they will follow us through the
rest of our lives no one can separate us
from them we miss them so much and yet
they are still here inside us and with
us
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