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This week: Eulogies... Edited by: Fyn-elf More Newsletters By This Editor
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Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.~~ Norman Cousins
Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.~~ Lao Tzu
Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth,
every going to rest and sleep a little death.!! Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.~~ Nelson Mandela
Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.~~ John Wayne
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.~~ Albert Pike
For it matters not, how much we own,
the cars…the house…the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we lived our dash. ~~ excerpt from 'The Dash' by Linda Ellis
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My family and I have lost nine people in the last six weeks. Friends, my sister-law-law, an author, a nephew, a partner, a grandmother, a mom. That is a lot of wakes, memorial services and funerals to attend in a very short time. Headed out to yet another memorial this weekend - except that part of the clan is calling it a 'momorial' - which fits!
And one sits in a hard pew and listens to the words others say of their dearly departed. At one service, a woman jumped up as the minister was sending us off to a luncheon and said for everyone to 'just hold on a dang minute!' She was incensed. Flat out mad. She had no issue saying that that minister (who had admitted same) didn't know her friend. That woman he talked about was a stranger. He didn't (because, of course, he couldn't) talk about the woman she knew and loved. It was if she'd wandered into the wrong room. Where was, she wanted to know, her goofy friend who made the world laugh, the one who loved watching the birds, the writer who focused on the minute details of an action, the lady who dressed as if it were still the 70s and who could out-cuss any sailor on an air craft carrier? Where was the lady who still made May Baskets, who never turned away a stray animal, who could tell you the story behind every constellation in the heavens and who always kept grape lollypops on the counter?
She was right. All we'd heard was a litany of schools attended, of how she didn't agree with much of what her sons grew to think was important and a series of ailments that had afflicted her her entire life. As the lady said, she was not any of that. Her diseases didn't have a thing to do with who she was; and she was amazing despite enough calamity in her life to take down Goliath!
As I head out to the last of the services, where my sister-in-law's ashes will be spread in Lake Ontario accompanied by a glorious sunset and roses thrown on the waters, it has me thinking. This gathering with include every bit as much laughter as it will tears. There will be the stories. The embarrassing ones, the funny ones, the poignant ones and the one's (if she can hear them) that will cause several folks to feel thwaps upside the teller's heads!
And the thinking continues. What will folks say about me? What will folks say about you? What do you want to be remembered for? The 'Great American Novel'? Cool. The super mom or dad? Awesome. That time you were on the camping trip and the 'what-ever' happened and you all ended up (insert appropriate word) as a result? Even better. Should be, i think, a celebration of the life lived; the good, the stellar, the silly and the sad. Nuances. Odd moments. Epiphanies. Epic Fails. It is the last, best time to have that person be alive, have life and 'be' there in a very special way.
I have a challenge for you. Not a contest, not a competition. An exercise. Write you OWN eulogy. Say what you would want said about the 'youness' of you! I expect you will find it illuminating!
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June is coming!
That means
we are ramping up for the
2018 WDC Anthology!
Submissions will open during June so ...
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