I can count on one hand the lives of friends I’ve lost in 26 years of living.

While I silently rejoice in my lack of experience with the grieving process, loss is a part of life I don’t know how to deal with.

Thankfully the Great Holy Wow introduced me to this podcast:

I first heard the podcast in it’s live form seated in a pew at First Universalist Church. Since I’ve returned to listen to the podcast six times. I suppose that means I need to share it with you. Perhaps you’ll find it comforting if you’re grieving.

Or just need a reminder about what it means to be alive.

SELECTED TEXTS FROM THE PODCAST

From Marie Howe’s poem “What the Living Do:”

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do.
…
I am living. I remember you.

The last stanza of “Living in the Body” by Joyce Sutphen:

Body is a thing that you have to leave
eventually. You know that because you have
seen others do it, others who were once like you,
living inside their pile of bones and
flesh, smiling at you, loving you,
leaning in the doorway, talking to you
for hours and then one day they
are gone. No forwarding address.

Lastly, a hopeful thought from Forrest Church:

Whether or not there is life after death surely there is love after death and just possibly those two are the same thing.

Rest in peace, Tom.

Michael