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Past Death

Lot of my peers have lost a parent, the lucky few have both alive even if ailing. Conversations about parents are focused on end of life and how best to support that phase. Leave them in the environments they are comfortable, uproot them to be close so its easier to manage their needs. The pandemic seems to have made these conversations far more urgent. 

A close friend lost his mother last year and managing the tangle of legal and financial affairs mostly from afar after a visit for the funeral arrangements seemed to make mourning an impossible task for him. There is no quiet, undisturbed time to do that. There is the random moment here and there when she is remembered in the ebb and flow of daily life but making peace with the loss of a parent takes much more than that. Reading these lines by Thich Nhat Hanh and thinking about what they mean is particularly relevant for those of us who are coming close to this loss or have already experienced it:

When you lose a loved one, you suffer. But if you know how to look deeply, you have a chance to realize that his or her nature is truly the nature of no birth, no death. There is manifestation and there is the cessation of manifestation in order to have another manifestation. You have to be very keen and very alert in order to recognize the new manifestations of just one person. But with the practice and with effort you can do it 


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