Living well - through life, through death

Tomorrow is Kali’s birthday.

She would have been 15 if she had been healthy enough to hang around.

We’ve learned a lot about life and about death the past 15 years from loving Kali. We appreciate our time here more, and we look forward to the next life there more.

Has having a child in heaven changed the way we parent our children here?

Probably.

We have picnics at the cemetery; we go to funerals as a family; we hold the hands of dying grandparents and watch for their final breaths. That’s okay. We actually think that’s good.

Part of living life well is living through death well.

It’s never what we want, but even death can be a gift from God. And all gifts from God are good.

Kali was surely a good gift to us.

But Kali is not dead. Dead means without life, without brilliance, without vitality, without use or significance.

And Kali is none of those things. She is, and very much so. She flourishes where she is, filled with spirit and surrounded by love. Even though we are separated and kept apart by the physical world, our spirits will forever be attached.

Even though I can no longer feel her in my body or with my hands, I can feel her in my heart and with my soul. Her life has purpose and meaning. Kali IS alive!

~ written shortly after her death