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Family is a lasting and permanent thing.  Connection through creation is a strong bond. Connection through love even stronger.  Put those two together and that bond is stronger even than death.

Today we gather to celebrate the life of one such bond.  A life that ended in death.  Death ends all life.  And we mourn together.  Yet we remember the life and living.  We celebrate the life and living.

So today the noise of living we all assume will be ours for years to come – the division over so much that is so unimportant – the pettiness we prefer to elevate so high …

It pales into insignificance.

Another bond of love and creation found this poem.  The “live, love, laugh” so repeated  by the one we say goodbye to today – it comes from a poem.  I have never seen this poem before.  Yet it captures, for me, the essence of this constant noise of living, this apparent preference for pettiness, this striving for something wordlessly meaningful.

The poem is called …

SUCCESS

“He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who has left the world better than he found it whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem or a rescued soul; who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had; whose life was an inspiration; whose memory a benediction.”

Bessie Anderson Stanley

The one we say goodbye to today used “Live Love Laugh” – and “Keep Smiling” – as their email footer.

I sit here with the words of this poem in front of me … the day ahead and all it will hold …

It seems to me that today draws together those who live very differently.  Draws together those of different ages, cultures and even continents.  Brings together in the same space those who never would normally want to be in the same space.  Joins in memory and joy – memory and grief – memory and love – the diversity of our wonderful human race.  The same “human race” that assumes it has so much time to waste picking at the scabs and wounds of others’ everyday living.  The same “human race” that today will forget all of that to focus on the celebration of one single life no longer living.

All that noise will be silenced today, all the pettiness will be set aside.  Different beliefs and whose is right (and who is wrong) will have no relevance today.  There will be no oxygen of life for all that “stuff”.

We will all join as one to celebrate the life and mourn the death of just one small (yet so HUGE) living.

I wonder why it takes death for us to respect life?

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