Sometimes, loved ones appear to leave us by choice—either ours or theirs—or they go when it is time for them to leave.
They either leave for a place in this state of being called Earth where it is possible to see them again, or they transition to a state of being where seeing them physically is now impossible.
Choice, or time, physical or not, all forms of leaving have a few things in common and one truth that underlies it all: although loved ones may leave, Love does not, which means we are never alone, abandoned, lost, or unloved.
Our emotions may tell us otherwise.
Besides missing those who have left, we often experience regrets.
We think, “I could have done more,” or ask, “What did I do wrong?”
These thoughts can be helpful, but only if we treat them as a learning experience, not guilt-producing ideas.
Facing what we could have done better or differently is the same as becoming skilled at anything by observing what we have done and practicing doing it even better the next time.
If an athlete stays in the pain and guilt of not doing well longer than necessary to correct the action, then the cycle of not doing well continues.
This is true in all walks of life.
We are becoming skilled at living and loving, and as we learn from what we do and move towards a higher understanding of perfecting that skill, we don’t allow guilt to reside within us.
Instead, we practice expanding our lives more profoundly into love.
By applying wettable sulfur to the moss and grass on our hill, I created an environment where the moss could thrive while the grass and weeds would not.
The same idea can be applied to our relationships. When we provide the environment we wish to live in, others will find comfort there, or they won’t. This doesn’t make one good or one bad.
Although the relationship may transition to a different form, Love remains, and we will experience that higher Love if we don’t allow regret, guilt, fear, or anger to take control of our thinking.
In 1 Corinthians 13, we read that charity never fails.
What is this charity, or Love, that Paul is talking about? It can’t be human love because it often fails.
It must be the omnipotent Love that is ever-present.
As we practice a higher awareness of omnipresent Love and become more skilled at letting go of the small worldview of how things are and yielding to the Divine’s direction, we provide an environment for others to experience the Love that never fails.
Those who are traveling the same road as us at this time may walk with us.
Those who are traveling a different road at this time may not.
But Love has never left us or them.
The other, seemingly more permanent, form of leaving is the transition we call death.
This can feel harder to deal with because we know we won’t bump into our loved ones somewhere in our lives, and we can’t call them on the phone, visit them in person, or even email them.
And yet, we know there is no death.
We know this because the infinite intelligence we know as the Divine or God is Life Itself.
We know this Life to be omnipresent and omniscient. We know that there is no beginning and no ending.
Sometimes, this is easy to forget because we are so used to celebrating the seeming beginning of life, known as birth, and mourning the seeming ending called death.
But neither is real.
Both are markings of time born within a perception we have adopted, but they are not the Truth of Life.
Sometimes, we witness the passage between our awareness of the life we live now and the new awareness of life that those who are making a transition experience.
This is evidence that Life continues and Love remains, and we can rejoice and find comfort and peace in that awareness.
At the end of that same verse in Corinthians, Paul says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
As we experience more of “knowing as we are known,” we will experience less of the sense of loss at what only appears to be a leaving and more of the joy of knowing that there is no loss or leaving—there is only omnipresent Love Loving Itself seen as Life.
More ideas like this are here.