...

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.  ~ Amelia Burr

 
 
Today my uncle lost a long battle with cancer.
 
I'm not sharing for condolences, or kind words, or any personal gratification. I, like I believe he was, am at peace with his death. It was the end of a great deal of suffering for a man who never before showed any inkling that he knew the word suffer existed.
 
I'm sharing because once in a while we are captured by a moment in time, good or bad, that can remind us of the importance of life.
 
Occasionally the time comes in each of our lives where we must say goodbye to someone we cherish, someone we could not picture our world without. At that time we must find the courage to surround ourselves with the strength of those left here with us and  move forward. We must brush away hurtful tears of sorrow and death and embrace memories of a life well lived and filled with love. We can momentarily experience the pain, but we cannot choose to live in it.
 
Instead, we must choose life. Choose to live it and love it and feel it. Through the pain and the sorrow and the hurt and the grief. Because that is who we are, the living. And that is who they would want us to be.