A relative of mine passed away recently. He was a good man, who will be dearly missed. Though I didn’t know this man well in life, I feel privileged to have been able to learn and grow from the wisdom and grace his immediate family demonstrated during his illness and passing. In speaking of his passing, one relative said that she had learned that there is a yin and yang to life, and that in the tragedy of another's passing you often find the best in yourself and others.
Hard times often call for you to dig deep and find places within yourself that you perhaps never would have found without them. Often, as I know was the case with many of his close family members, after a tragedy you find that you are stronger, deeper, wiser and more capable than you ever dreamed. Not to mention that you learn what family really means because petty differences are set aside and everything is stripped down to the bare bones.
Ecclesiastes is often quoted at funerals, and I think I now have a better understanding as to why. “To everything |
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there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to weep and a time to laugh.”
Everything in life is in a constant state of flux and change – even the atoms that make up seemingly immovable objects such as mountains. And life sometimes seems unfair, even cruel. But without the opposites, the joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears, the birth and the death, life would not be life. If there was only love and peace, life would be a painter’s palate with only one color. Maybe we need all shades and colors, and at times even to experience pain, to fully grasp our own greatness and potential.
A favorite movie line of mine perhaps says it best, “Because without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain’t as sweet.”
Jeffrey Mindell writes poems, articles, comics, and has even written a few books (unfortunately yet to be published). He can be reached at jmindell@gmail.com |
