Memories A Special Supplement for the Eternal Care Industry

LOVE LINKS LIFE AND DEATH

In Life we create memories, which can be beautiful stories with our families. As my son and daughter grew up with other children in our community, they have found a collective experience to look back to with their friends. Now a little too overgrown to knock and ask for trick or treat, they visit the same families, the dads and mums, grandparents who are there to see the passing of time and children growing. We bother to decorate our homes and backyards with tombstones, hanging man from the trees, prepare all sorts of treats for children because we want to show them love and not to fear death. Introducing a vague concept as death; death like the seasons is certain and we prepare for its coming.

Adjusting to absence makes it difficult to cope with the regular routine in life. It is that gaping wound that seeks to be filled. The anticipation of emptiness can become even much more unbearable. We learn how to carry on with our lives, keeping up with their physical absence. Nurture friendships and nourish that image of love within helps overcome loneliness. It is the second Halloween that my children will celebrate trick or treating without their dad. The sense of absence can be healed making Halloween an affair to remember and celebrate finding meaning in emptiness or loss. It is important that children see through absence, the ability for gratefulness for once having a dad, for the time shared, and for the love given.

Death is the inevitable fact of life. Children are prone to experience the loss much more significantly. Given that they cannot fully express what troubles them or understand the surge of emotions. As parents, we endeavor to equip our children with Life Skills to better prepare them for circumstances like absence or loss. Raising children is not just providing the basic and bare necessities of daily living. Adults can show children how to cope with absence not with what you fill up the empty space with but in achieving Life Sense.

Death is a common event. The pain arises from the absence or the anticipation of a loss. It is the connection that creates the anxiety and hurting. How far are we willing to mask the real meaning of Death? Perhaps not to that extent where they become unprepared to meet death as an everyday and real experience. No matter how much preparedness, the experience of losing a father is process that cannot be rushed. It needs all the love and understanding to help them make it through. It begins with a realistic sense of assuring that everything will be all right most especially from the surviving parent.

Only Love conquers death. To remain in the hearts of the people left behind immortalizes the deceased; love exists in the cherished memories built together. Understanding this, the arrival of death in the family may not be severely heart breaking. We appreciate Loving in a much deeper sense. Love is endless; in essence the love given continues to grow. The Love given flows and grows in time. When we have learned to be grateful for the presence of a beloved, then every death is just a passing knowing that death is a change of state and not dissolution of being. We find comfort with one another as a family. As a family usher our loved one to die meaningfully by giving the dying the loving assurance that everything is completed. Love and summation is an important aspect of death.

Mourning shared is less traumatic. Grieve recognizing the loss and learning to own the pain. Resolve to solve. Healed memory is measured by the person's capacity to recall it with least heaviness. The ability to objectify the concerns and find meaningful insights are all indicators that the storm is past over. All hurts are deemed healed when people are able to talk about it with calmness and narrate objectively. Family members are able to heal faster by supporting each other and with the knowledge of the love given by the deceased. For the same reason, this also gives the capacity to move on.

People experience Mourning and Grieving differently. Some need more time and others are able to move on faster. Healing depends on our ability accept and make choices. Managing our own resources to heal differs greatly according to our own temperaments and personality. People heal in many ways such as quietly allowing the tide to settle while others need the entire community to partake in his grief.

Healing is a gift of time and restoring bond between people requires that we recognize the person above the situation, above the problem.

Launching a book on death is not appealing as it is trivial and generally considered a taboo. People would rather avoid death. However, the art in loving is the face of the art of dying inside out. Death whether physical or spiritual in nature requires Love. The challenge to let go of hurried judgment, to silence our thoughts, to be still and to stand by are some of the gestures of Love. Only when one has given without measure is Love understood. Love is patient, Love is kind, and love sustains both time and weathers trouble.

Dying clears space for all that matters. Death is a catalyst for change. Whether it is a tangible death or relinquishing a certain part of oneself. "Love changes without coercion" because loving is a gentle persuasion. Love is expansive it permeates in everything. The power called Loving. Supported by one's capacity for goodness. Every little act of goodness influences change. Goodness is diffusive. It is the ingredient for happy life, lasting friendships and peaceful death. Goodness radiates.

The death of a loved one can be devastating because loss is incomprehensible for the heart that Loves Truly. The depth of pain is commensurate to the love given. "You are only hurt in as much as you have loved." Absence creates emptiness. Nothingness creates a vacuum needing to be filled. Dying alone and unprepared is difficult. Someone must be there to assure or comfort a person in sorrow or the dying in his weakest and final moments.

To be forgotten is one dilemma of the dying. Love is contained in a figment of memory cherished by the heart endlessly. We are urged by charity to honor the memory of a departed Loved one at all times but most especially during " All souls day". We reminisce the giftedness of the Love. Love leaves an imprint that cannot be forgotten. It becomes a treasured memory not of a feeling but of the Person.

Recognizing the unique person, our responses and acts of compassion touches the soul. It is not only to accentuate what is needed, what is missing, what is miserable because these are all facts of life. It is how people show and extend a helping hand that determines gentleness from rudeness. Because life is not a box. Unlearning our patterns of thinking and ways of treating people is creativity to express love that extends beyond the conventional.

Death is a catalyst for personal change. "The truth lives in our ability to appreciate and share our common strivings and respect differences because we are all but one humanity." We are all children of the universe and the common calling is to love beyond borders. Love is sensitivity to the things around us, perceptive and responsive. That is Emotional Intelligence - responding in an appropriate manner.

People affect each other by the things that we say about each other, do to the least neighbor or think of people. We are all but one web connected in one way or another. Every Individual person in a Community is the link that connects and unifies the whole. Persons are not utilities to our personal satisfaction.

Prayers and Peace at bedside is most important. The thoughts and feelings of the dying go through cycles of peace and storms. All of life's experiences will come back haunting, healing and healed. Dying brings turmoil in emotions needing greater ability to accept and expand as death approaches. The Willingness to die is our capacity to set frees the things, feelings and people holding us back and then death settles in.

At the end of one's lifetime, Introspection is part of human nature. Death is a summation of every action and choices made in each day of our life. Experiencing dying is an emotional process of recapitulating everything. It is a backward journey of one's lifetime before us. The questions in life and death is how have we lived one's existence no matter how brief or extended it is "... a sacred expression of my being in time."

Life is the canvass painted by the choices we made. Our choices are a reflection of what we hold important. Every Choice is measured in Love and loving.

Whatever we experienced and course of action undertaken becomes a series of events leading to what we are now. Taking full account of one's actions and the repercussions of each deed, thoughts and words live longer than our mortal existence. Loving there are no monuments to attest to one's goodness rather only in the hearts of those we leave behind. "Time and time what we carry is the essence of our life, love and living."

The reason to live and die determines the whole process of living. Different people have multiple senses for what is important and die for various reasons; we can only do so much as to honor such a view in Life.

Materialism and Transcendence are of equal importance depending on your personal values system and experiences in life. It should actually complement both philosophies in Life. It will not find its connection if both cannot find the reason to unite is drop one's preconceived ideas about each other. Love unites. Love more than a fuzzy feeling is a decision.

The fulfillment in Life is true greatness that comes from doing the best you can. Finding satisfaction and fulfillment in life gives peace at deathbed and the serenity to accept dying lives in the choices made.

Getting Married we cherish the coming of two beautiful souls filled with so much love and hope. On a wedding day, all couples celebrate union oblivious that Life calls off anyone at any time; death always comes at its own sweet bidding. As partners in Life, husbands and wives must care to prepare for death. Couples must consider when one passes away; the partner left behind muster enough spiritual and emotional resources to cope with dying and death.

When wedding marches turn into macabre procession to the cemetery; tears begin to swell and roll on disheveled cheeks. Funerals are about rules of disengagement. Where wives may cry a river. Learning to be alone is scary. Adjustment is toxic. The capacity to handle loss is a stumbling block nobody is spared. Sometimes, marriages have long ended even before death visits. Union is more than what meets the eye. It is a deep union that is fully rooted on mutual sharing and love. It is Love that keeps fire burning. Same affection creates pain during burial.

"Immortality is a crown when our cups are emptied." Love gives the ability to see beyond one's skin. It recognizes everything in another human being; thus we see what is complementary and not common. Seeing what needs improvement and acceptance, healing and mending can only be achieved with utmost generosity and kindness that appreciates the person first and problems as periphery to the Person. Problems are to be solved and People are to be loved.

Death in most circumstances is permanent. A glimpse of the afterlife is a costly journey and passage. Death as a passing experience is not given to all. Much of it is a horrific experience of dying. It will always be harrowing. It is only within the context of acceptance and mental- spiritual readiness that makes it a much more romanticized concept. But to die is not an easy process. It is a fact that every piercing pain of cardiac arrest is a stark reminder of how fragile life is. No one is above life but Life itself.

Dying, death settles and comes when we are fully ready. We experience dying many deaths before our final physical comes. The many sacrifices that we do for others and the ones we love help us achieve the better part of oneself. That certain shedding is not sought, it will come to everyone even without asking for it. One will always receive what is necessary during a given time. It teaches us to relinquish even the very thoughts that we carry and also changes to make us better at life.

Love and death are synonymous, the only force strong enough to change the course of life. Love is the only force that takes anyone out of his comfort space. It is a space given with love and received with respect. It is our actions and gesture of loving and the understanding of such that provides the material for emotional and social clashes. Even within the context of families and marriages where these clashes can happen and it can be bitter and verbally abusive, love teaches us to remain kind. Everything adheres to Love. Empathy teaches you what, when, where and why.

For all the sadness that the thought of death brings, Death is a reminder to cherish that "life is beautiful" and to live a good life. It is the inevitable truth that we are basically dying each day from the day we are born.

End of life can be threatening. People tend to cling to Life in many odd ways. There is nothing as common as death and yet the most avoided topic for discussion. What makes it meaningful is that it carries a face. Every death is a story to tell a life to celebrate.

Maria Lourdes de Vera is an artist and an award- winning author. She holds a degree in Nursing and Psychology and has been a clinical instructor and a lecturer in different Colleges or Universities.