I will NOT die a monster

I am not a religious person, but this is beautiful.

The Benediction from Rachel Held Evans’ funeral:

Blessed are the agnostics. Blessed are they who doubt. Blessed are those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the preschoolers who cut in line at communion. Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are those whom no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers. The closeted. The teens who have to figure out ways to hide the new cuts on their arms. Blessed are the meek. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like. Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried. Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else. Blessed are those who “still aren’t over it yet.”

Blessed are those who mourn. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

I imagine Jesus standing here blessing us because that is our Lord’s nature. This Jesus cried at his friend’s tomb, turned the other cheek, and forgave those who hung him on a cross. He was God’s Beatitude— God’s blessing to the weak in a world that admires only the strong.

Jesus invites us into a story bigger than ourselves and our imaginations, yet we all get to tell that story with the scandalous particularity of this moment and this place.

We are storytelling creatures because we are fashioned in the image of a storytelling God. May we never neglect that gift. May we never lose our love for telling the story.

Amen

- by the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Webber. (VIA)

As long as there is love, there will be grief. The grief of time passing, of life moving on half-finished, of empty spaces that were once bursting with the laughter and energy of people we loved. As long as there is love there will be grief because grief is love's natural continuation. It shows up in the aisles of stores we once frequented, in the half-finished bottle of wine we pour out, in the whiff of cologne we get two years after they've been gone.Grief is a giant neon sign, protruding through everything, pointing everywhere, broadcasting loudly, "Love was here." In the finer print, quietly, "Love still is."

- Heidi Priebe

“Tomorrow morning, just hours from now, I will say a final farewell to my eyes, my ears, my nose, my protector, my best friend, my partner, and my son. Words fall short in capturing the depth of my gratitude for the immeasurable contributions my partner made to the community and to me. He faced danger with unwavering courage, often walking into the unknown while putting my safety before his own.

To some, he might have been just a dog, but to those whose lives he touched and saved, he will always be CP109 K9 King—a true hero. He was always ready, always vigilant, always bearing the weight of his duties with grace and loyalty. Rest peacefully, my son. If there’s a heaven for heroes, you are there, cherished as one of God’s most remarkable creations—Man’s best friend, my best friend. In a thousand lifetimes, I could never deserve you.”

Memorial plaque.

Man's video tribute to his wife who passed away from cancer and their journey together. (SOURCE)

Before passing away to illness, his best friend recorded his best man speech to be a part of their big day. (VIA)

“Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people—they always go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them, any more than you can hold moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they’re inside you, then they’re still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart. ~Bruce Coville

(Book: Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher)

#ad #englishliterature #modern #literature

(VIA).

"This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date. I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this.

It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life that keeps us feeling terrified & alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona"

Credit goes to the respective owners.

"After he lost his mom, this is how his classmates received him back at school." (VIA)

(VIA).

We all make mistakes as kids, but all kids deserve a chance to learn from those mistakes. (VIA)

"Casey McIntyre died in early November at 38 years old of ovarian cancer. A joyful and caring soul, mother, wife, friend to many—she wanted to have her legacy to be clearing medical debt for others. But her husband Andrew Gregory says they never dreamed it would get this far. They had good health insurance and didn't accrue any medical debt, but in a post that went viral on X, Casey wrote she was "keenly aware others aren't so fortunate." The couple set up a fund with the nonprofit group RIP Medical Debt, which buys up debt for millions of dollars at a time at a fraction of the original cost. The group says that for every dollar it receives in donations, it can relieve about $100 of medical debt." (VIA)

“Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there,I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush,

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.”

Clare Harner.

A song for his dad. (SOURCE~SIMON ROBERT FRENCH)