A thin veil

It’s not good for man to be alone, God said when Adam was strolling on his own through that beautiful, brand new garden. There should be a companion, a partner for him to share his life with. And thus happened.
Ever since we see people seeking other people to bond with and forming all kinds of relationships. People join communes, convents, communities to meet and connect with kindred spirits. For it is in those relationships that we thrive best. In that connectedness we find friendship, understanding, support, care, love.
That’s why we connect and bond. Relationships make us more ‘us’. Relationships make us strong and beautiful, happy and confident. And therein lies also it’s greatest weakness. We lose a lot when this relationship comes to an end. We only feel half the person we were before; we feel amputated and lost and more alone than we’ve ever felt before in our lives.
At one point or another, we all suffer such a loss. Some even more than once in their lifetime. Apart from the how and when, our condition at such a moment is pretty much the same. We stare into the abyss of our grief and all we see in this – apparently – bottomless pit is utter darkness. We wonder if and how we will ever get over this heartache. Will there ever be joy again; will I ever see light again? Where has my loved one gone?
Throughout religious writings, in myths, fairytales and folktales we read of such pain and despair and agony, and we hear these questions asked by all kinds of people. And staring in our abyss of grief, numb, paralysed almost, we are not able to see how these stories at the same time offer us answers to our questions and words of comfort and hope and light.
Time and again we are offered glimpses of miracles, of some divine interference to make known to us that all that is really precious will never ever perish. For that is not how it’s meant to be. That is not how things, especially living things were created.
That is not how we were made. All that is, is made from the same original stardust-like material. All that is, is brought into existence by the same power and nourished by the same source. Enlightened with the same spark of life and hallowed by the same spirit.
Therefore we are all connected through this essence of being, and through the same divine will, the same love and wisdom with which we were created. And these bonds of love in which we are incorporated are not meant for a lifetime. They are meant for eternity. That’s how strong and pure and solid they are made. So they wíll last for eternity, whatever our material shape or condition is, wherever we find ourselves in this vast universe.
That is the point we so easily miss, when staring in our abyss. We focus too much on the physical aspects of life and death. Which is of course totally understandable because we live in a material world. For the time being we exist in matter, in a physical body. But the pitfall is that we believe that the moment the physical body is gone, the whole person is gone. Which is not true and cannot even be possible as I stated earlier.
What made our loved one so dear and precious to us in life, does not die with the physical body, because that is simply not how we are made or meant to be. That most beautiful and most precious part of us is divine and eternal by nature. It will always be somewhere in this limitless realm of light, this all-embracing bond of love.
When it comes to it, death is best compared with a thin veil. Some are on this side, and some are on the other side. And due to an awkward situation of unequal timeliness, some pass to the other side of that veil, while others still have to wait a bit longer before it’s their turn.
Yes, we are separated, but only for a while, and surely we’re not so far apart as we often fear.