When Milestones into Headstones Change

By Rev. Amari Magdalena

One aspect of spending several decades on this planet, is that friends start departing.  The loss of our parents is somewhat expected: it is unusual for children to predecease their parents, though it happens. Perhaps the loss of friends is also a given as time accumulates.  When the friends are younger and generally healthier however, the departures seem harsher.  They too do not seem to follow natural order.

Such was the case for me this past week when I lost a younger friend.  Having moved so very much over the years, I have only a few deep friendships with many years of relating.  In twenty or thirty years, friends have experienced so very many highs and lows together; so much history.  I feel it is that depth of connection that causes the most pain.  No one knows our stories like these people.  They’ve seen us at our best and worst and still love us; treasures that cannot easily be replaced.

My experience with death, has taught me that there is a window of cascading memories that flood my consciousness shortly before, during and after the death.  I relive so very many great times shared, the genuine hugs, and comfort on the darker days.  Interestingly, I don’t whitewash our relating seeing only the positive; I choose to see it all and still feel the immense value of the relationship and its abiding love. 

Always, I allow myself the sadness of loss, the tears, the denial, and the whole range of emotions that losses evoke.  Yet through it all, I am holding light and a space for the departed’ s transition through the veils.  I’ve also been gifted, a few times, pictures of the person on the other side as whole and well and happy.  This happened for me with my friend who just passed.  It is a comfort and I am most grateful to be shown these pictures.

Once I’ve moved beyond the initial grief, and perhaps shock, I come to a place of deep peace knowing the gift of what the person brought to my life and I to theirs.  A great calm begins to take over for me and the sadness slowly abates.  As time goes by, I think of them in moments of simply appreciating who they were and a growing knowing that they wish for me to just keep moving forward.

Having had a near death experience, I also am assured that I will see them again.  The end, isn’t actually final.  I know that to ease us all out of this time/space/matter continuum it helps for us to be embraced by the etheric form of our loved ones.  And, after that, I suspect we move back into the formless undulation of light and essence; always connected yet completely free. 

For all of my dear friends that have stepped through the veils, I remember you.  As the song says, “I’ll remember you when I’ve forgotten all the rest.  You to me were true; you to me were the best.  When there is no more, you cut through the core quicker than anyone I ever knew. When I’m all alone in the great unknown, I’ll remember you.”

[53 Past Blogs are in my book "Shaman Talk" available in softcover and ebook on Amazon.com]