If one chooses to focus on the pain and bitterness, then there is no doubt in my mind that the experience of loss will be infinitely painful. At the death of a beloved, do we not nurture sorrow's pain in our hearts when we focus upon the loss of that person in our own lives rather than focusing on the creative and productive measures that filled theirs. Hmm, that reminds me of a poem I wrote. Its included in my book
Mystic Madness in the Night (shameless plug:
http://www.xlibris.com/mysticmadnessinthenight )
Eulogy
Standing on the silence of the sepulchral stage,
a silver-gilt sarcophagus summons several starry-eyed.
Each enjoys an enchanting effect:
effort enlivened in enlightenment.
A single seed, sparingly sorrowful, so still yet
stirring somewhere - seated at its center,
a love of life, a living lapse in the
'lorn luminosity of laboring lungs.
Planted peacefully, perhaps plucked
perchance, posing as a part, petals
caress the cadaver's core, caring
for the crying and concerned.
The wind whispers willfully of wishes
that once went by, wandered by one
who in the name of them had died.
Death dealt desired dangers. Daring
dreams and darkness drum the dauntless.
Hopes held haughtily heralded honing of the heart,
high heaven's holy hiccup happens to agree,
stifling this somber soliloquy.
What wonders were lost when weary flesh wore out?
What worldly wealth of wisdom winked away?
The mortified moment of mortality
mummed the mumbling majority.
And in the autumn of anger and unridden angst,
among the aftereffects, awry and aired,
friends and family finicky felt the frost forlorn,
following the fading fortitude of the fellow death had born.
Memories magnified via mortal majesty
maneuver moments into malcontent.
Does this honor life or even death,
which so easily changes the face of everything?
When something beautiful in our lives is suddenly not there, should we focus upon that loss and grieve for moments striken from us, or with that beauty still within our heart, begin to build again? That is the question of how to respond to the destruction of the beautiful.