No dead people

As if there were dead people.  There are no dead people Lord.  There are only the living, on earth and beyond.  Death exists Lord, but its nothing but a moment, a second, a step.  The step from provisional to permanent, from temporal to eternal.  As in the death of the child the adolescent is born, from the caterpillar emerges the butterfly, from the grain the full-blown sheath.

                                                                                                                   Michael Quost

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One day

Two funerals

Standing room only

As people came to remember

Two lives well lived

There were the missing

Those gone now

They were gone

It was finished

Or was it?

At each service

Something was present

People hugged

Talked

Remember

Smiled

Cried

Community

People holding each other up

Brought together by

Special lives

Ah yes, it was over

But they were still in the room

Remembered

But they will still be in the room

When memories fade

For love is a gift that keeps on giving

Love brought us together

In love we celebrated

And in love we will go on

Into each day

Each normal day

These two will be there when we are compassionate

They will be there when we gaze at the mountains they too loved

They will be there as we past the places

Where they worked

And walked

And play

And loved

We will see her walking, but fast and determined down the road

We will see him smiling at his grandchildren

And we will smile

And we will want to be more loving

We will want to be better people

And we will want to experience

Community

There is nothing, nothing

Like people bound together in love

Nothing like people lifting each other up

To lift up our hearts

To lift them up to the Lord