sitting here, grieving for friends who have passed on, either from health problems, or because they were taken from us by violence. The "In Memoriam" box, on the home page, has grown by too many names in just the last year or so. Some of them I knew, others I didn't, but all are sisters who were loved, appreciated, and are missed.
I guess this might be called my own "Day of remembrance." Somehow, Christmas seems very somber to me, this year. I know the "real" reason for the season, but I find myself wondering, how can a caring, loving God allow the sicknesses or violence that takes such people from us before their time.
Worse, I know that there are so many, TOO many, of us who are afflicted by illness or injury, who might, someday, become names on a list. I wonder if someday, when I breathe my last, if I will be no more than that...a name on a list. Will anyone remember me for who I was, or will I just be a name who wrote a few stories that no one reads any more.
Will they remember the stupid things I've done, or will they remember that I tried to help wherever I could?
I knew most of the names that are memorialized in the In Memoriam" box...some better than others. I remember their kindness and their warm humor and helpful ways that encouraged me to stretch myself and find who I really was, and am. I treasure the memories of talks we had in chatrooms and on the phone, and I remember how they made me feel welcome and cared about.
They left me, and others I'm sure, a legacy of love and caring, and a trove of their works on many web archives. I know that they are "In the arms of the Angels" now...no longer suffering from illness, injury, or violence...but I grieve for their absence every day, and I treasure the ones who are still with us, still sharing their love, compassion, and talents with us.
Let us all take a moment in the hectic rush of the holiday season, to remember those no longer with us, and offer thanks for those who are still here. Tomorrow might add yet another name to the in memoriam lists. With all my heart, I pray that it doesn't.
God bless you all...every one...and God bless those who have left us.
Happy Holidays from.
Catherine Linda Michel
Comments
I myself stare at this list often....
I often find myself starring at the same list. Staring at the names of those I knew well in person, those I knew online, and those I only knew by name.
As depressing as it can be at times, it sometimes actually picks me up.
Remembering the good days, the good times, and all the fun.
Weather it was via a joke told, experiences IRL, or via the stories they gave us all.
Life is a mysterious thing, that I don't think I'll ever fully understand, but I know I was blessed to be part of such a grand community, and especially, to have known Kim.
-HuGgLeS- and Merry Christmas.
-P/KAF/PT
Death is not the end ... and if it is ...
Hey Cathy:
Please don't dispair. Sometimes things seem really unfair, and maybe they are when we apply rules that make sense to us. My own personal decision is that when things don't make sense, it is because I don't know the rules. I am not the Creator, God, G_d, Allah SWT, or anything like him.
I won't say that my losses were any worse than anyone elses, but to me they were much worse than I ever wanted to experience. But through all the emptyness and blackness, I feel like I have learned some things that I would never have any other way.
There are just lots of things that I don't even care about any more. So much of it now just seems like the small stuff.
People will or won't remember me when I die. Some liked me, and some didn't. Frankly, I am getting tired and when the time comes maybe I'll wimper and maybe I won't.
I have a couple adoptive kids who depend on me right now, but they'll be gone in another 6 months or so. Maybe I'll live as a man after that. I wonder how convincing I'll be? Till then I'll just try to do as much good to as many people as I can.
This is my favorite poem about death:
by: William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)
O him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.