It helps if the person was ready to go, much harder if death came too soon.
I lost my mother a year and a half ago. She had been gradually weakening physically over the seven years since my father died, until her body just gave out on her. To the end she was engaged and engaging, caring about the family who surrounded her. I talked with her as much as I could, savoring every minute, encouraging her to tell me anything she wanted to about her life and our family. I learned more about her childhood and the interesting people and experiences she had encountered as she moved through life in those few weeks than I had ever known before. A few weeks after I returned home, she died peacefully in her sleep.
I miss her and still feel like she is only a phone call away sometimes, but I know she isn’t. My brothers and sisters and talk about her sometimes, reliving memories. In some ways she seems still alive—in us. And maybe that’s how people mend, by keeping a loved ones
‘s memory alive reminiscing over life shared with her.
Somehow it makes one see life as that “ever rolling stream” that “bears all its sons away” and know that not only the loved one gone but also oneself is part of that.