Healing After Loss

JUNE 18

Nothing could stop you.

Not the best day. Not the quiet. Not the ocean rocking.

You went on with your dying.

—MARK STRAND

How they went on about their business, the dying. They
knew we were there. They loved us, wished to spare us pain.
Yes, they would miss us. But their eyes were already on
another landscape, and we saw them pulling away.
Now that they are gone, do we feel abandoned?
No reason to. They love us still. They have reached a
destination.
Do we need their permission to let them go? Surely they
gave us that in dying.
Perhaps they need our permission to be fully at ease with
their departure. A friend tells how, immediately after the
death of a loved uncle, he felt the uncle’s presence in the
hall with him, and the question, “Is it all right to go, Buddy
[the family’s name for my friend]?” And he said, “Yes, it’s
all right,” and felt the atmosphere change, a kind of peace
and tranquility set in.

Death is a mystery in which the living are bystanders, but a
mystery to be trusted.