Death is Unavoidable And There Is No Rulebook for Grieving

Love the people in your life today — because they might be gone tomorrow.

Photo by Cathy Mü on Unsplash

The cold, hard fact of life is that it will end in death. No two ways about it — your body will die, and the energy at its core will leave it. There is no avoiding this — but between birth and death, you get a life. And that will be whatever you make of it.

Unfortunately, the theme of 2023 thus far has been death. Many of my friends have lost people they cared about this year, and it’s been rough to witness.

I couldn’t avoid experiencing loss, too.

A few months ago, I lost a friend who had created a choir I loved to sing with.

Now, I have lost a mentor who I knew had failing health. He was a force to be reckoned with, often larger than life, an amazing resource of information, and someone who brought joy to many. I was both a formal and informal student of his. And though we drifted apart over the past few years, I’m going to miss him.

My mother-in-law is fighting a cancer we know will kill her all too soon. We are all hoping that the time she is still with us will be as pain-free and without suffering as possible and let her keep her mind intact.