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Where do we find those that we’ve lost? We celebrate lives both well-lived and maybe not so well-lived, but we celebrate those lives because we loved them. We miss them terribly and we feel lost because they are no longer there.

We can’t meet them for coffee or send them a text or find them on the other end of a phone call. We can’t touch base through email or run into them by chance when we’re out and about somewhere.

Sometimes they are ready to go and sometimes they are torn from us before their time. It all comes back around to our choices. Did we grab that one moment and say, “Yes, I’ll leave now and meet you,” or take the time to call or to write to them? Or did we decide that we’re just too busy? This needs to be done or that needs to be done. And soon enough, we’re at the church, attending a service, and wondering why we let all that time go by.

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And yet, I was comforted this week, at the service of someone I held dear by the words on the little remembrance:

“Indian Prayer…Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond’s glint on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grains. I am the gentle autumn’s rain, when you awaken in the morning’s hush. I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there; I did not die.”