I am remembering (now) when my own mother passed on; it was hard to watch her die, which she did... before my eyes. When she "left" I recall a strange sinking feeling go through me... a little like a cold wind that sneaks through the crack in a door, catching you unaware. At that moment, I didn't know what it was; but, soon afterwards it became clear. Her death had left a hollow in me of some sort -- actually, a dark hollow -- because (at the time) I couldn't see into it. Not long afterwards, I realized something I would share with you now.

This "hollow" feeling wasn't created by her death; her death revealed it.

Loving those we do in their time fills a certain vital "space" in us that, for the longest time, can't be filled in any other way. And I strongly suspect that when someone we love dies, it's to serve a greater purpose than our initial grief permits us to see.

The death of a loved one reawakens in us an awareness of this "place" (in our heart) that had been filled with our love for them, so that -- for the absence of this person -- we are re-introduced to this "hole" in our heart. This makes a time of loss the proverbial "rock and hard place," spiritually speaking. For though we may wish it otherwise, we know that this (painful) sense of emptiness can no longer be filled with "what was." Real Love is presence, not past. Which brings us to the point:

God never creates a space in us (a need) for which He hasn't created what is meant to fill it; and if we are willing to see this, in spite of our sorrow, then here we meet our native need for another order of love that cannot die. And our need -- this longing -- is God's pleasure to fulfill as long as we don't try to fill it ourselves (through prolonged grief, drugs, distractions, anger, what have you). So, as strange as it may seem at first, we are actually "introduced" to the possibility of this new order of love by the very loss we have suffered. In this way, we come to realize what I think is the Miraculous:

Even though the one we loved is no longer with us, we haven't really lost the love we shared... rather, we have gained -- been awakened to -- another kind of love that holds everyone in it for all time.