If you’re fortunate enough to have a person to spend your life with or are in the bud of a new relationship, Happy Valentine’s Day to you. I am in a long-term relationship, but my spouse is away for the weekend celebrating the marriage of his oldest son. I have spent Valentine’s Day alone before, and it’s more of a Hallmark holiday than a legitimate day of celebration, so it doesn’t bother me. However, this day can make the lonely, and the mourners feel their emotional pain more keenly. We want an emotional connection to others, especially those we’ve lost to the death of the body.
I am now working at a Cancer center where people get treatment for their illness. I am also a cancer survivor, though mine was never going to be life-threatening. It still makes you consider your mortality, and it isn’t a cakewalk for your loved ones. My dad passed away before my stepmother, and that was unexpected because she was the one with the medical problems, and he was the vigorous outdoorsman with retirement to look forward to. When my gallows humor rears its ugly head, I will quip, “No one gets out of life alive,” which is true – this affects us all. By the time you’re middle age, you will see so many friends and family pass away that you begin to pull into yourself to avoid the pain of loss. My grandmother got to her mid-90s before dying but got so lonely from the loss of her husband and friends that her life was pretty miserable. She told us that making friends is a long process that you simply don’t have time for when you get to be her age. It’s a risky investment for an elderly heart.
The way we handle our relationships in our country is a real problem. We fear loss too much when we ought to be celebrating connection, no matter how brief it may be. As a lifelong afterlife philosopher, my study of parapsychology has shown me that we aren’t separated, not even by death. We are all of us connected in the most fundamental of ways. Death is nothing more than a transformation, a transmutation, and a metamorphosis. We don’t even have to go without communicating with our discarnate loved ones.
Today, I imagined being in a support group with people who are emotionally wrecked by the loss of a spouse through bodily death. In my mind, I saw an empty chair next to each mourner as I talked them through the process of connecting to their discarnate. I have them close their eyes and focus on one of their best days with their departed spouse. What were they wearing? How did they smell? Was their hair mussed up by wind or coifed for a night out? What did you talk about? What were you doing? Did you touch each other? How did that feel? Listen to the memory of their voice, feel the soft, tender touches, and imagine they are sitting next to you right now. With all the evidence of life after bodily death, it wouldn’t take much suspension of disbelief to have the loved one be right there, next to them, for Valentine’s Day, or any other day, because, though they are not corporeal, they are still real and very much still with us.
