(c) http://www.greatcosmichappyass.com/ The card I gave my dad when my mom passed away.

 

I read this Tweet from @TheSingleWoman “There will come a day when you will realize: You would have never found YOU if you hadn’t lost THEM.”

I realize it’s inregard to a break up but with today’s news that a dear friend’s dad is battling a cancer more severe than hoped, when I read it, I found the words comforting. I would not be the person I am today if my mother was still alive. I would not be the person I am today if I hadn’t lost her to a subdural hematoma.

I’m not saying everyone needs to lose someone they love dearly to find their way, but I am saying that as tough as it is in the moment of their death and in the moments after, your destiny, your beliefs, your needs change. You become shaped by the life they have lived and they life they would have lived. I found myself living every moment like it’s my last and loving every moment that I have with my family and my friends.

I don’t know what the future holds for my friend and her family. I don’t know if it will end in sadness or in a celebration of life. A life that is still alive or a celebration of a life that once lived. All I do know is that the spirit of my friend though fragile cannot be completely broken. She has many friends and family who will hold her through the anger, the tears, the fears, the denial, and the acceptance. If she allows us, we will help her pick up the pieces and put a patch over the holes that life has given her heart. If she chooses to go it alone as I did, she will at least know that when she is ready, we will be there for her.

Death as hard as it is, is not the end of one’s spirit, just the shell that held them here on Earth. One’s Spirit lives forever and I look at my youngest niece Taylor who only knew her Grandma Lek for a brief six months and see so many influences that could only be from my mom as proof that One’s Spirit does live on.