Quote from Kent on December 24, 2024, 21:55

Christmas for those who are not there

https://luogocomune.net/opinione/il-natale-di-chi-non-c-%C3%A8

All over Italy, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, nephews, uncles and cousins are getting ready to gather around a table to celebrate Christmas.

But often around that table there will also be an empty seat. The seat, dramatically empty, of someone who has recently passed away.

It is not at all difficult, in fact, to find a family in which a close relative has recently passed away, and their absence is felt more at Christmas than on any other day of the year. Usually it is the elderly who pass away, when nature follows its course. But it often happens that, due to illness or accident, even those who have not yet completed the natural cycle of their life pass away. And in that case the pain of those who remain becomes even more acute, because to the physical absence of the deceased person is added also that sense of injustice for those who have not been able to fully realize their earthly mission.

Now here I don't want to open a philosophical discussion about life and death. I would just like to invite everyone to send a thought of affection to all those people who find themselves in the condition of not being able to fully enjoy the moment of family happiness, precisely because of a recent bereavement.

Finding myself in that situation (this summer I lost my wife), I know very well that there are no words of comfort that can console those who have suffered that type of loss: the death of a loved one is a wound that never disappears. It heals, with time, but it will never go away completely. It will stay with us as long as we live, and it will come back to knock forcefully on our most intimate thoughts, when we least expect it. We simply have to learn to live with it.

But there is a thought that can help us get through these difficult times. It is the thought of the immortality of the soul. I have the absolute conviction that the physical body is only a marginal aspect of our being, a biological instrument that the soul uses for a certain period of time, to make its experiences. After that it returns from where it came, waiting for a new cycle of incarnation. And there, in that "parking area" where the soul floats lightly among the stars, it sees and feels everything that happens here with us.

It cannot communicate with us directly, it cannot interfere with our path, it cannot influence what happens around us. But it sees, hears, and experiences emotions equal to ours in observing our daily actions.

So sit at the table with a positive thought. That place is not empty at all, it is simply "vacant" from a physical point of view. But the presence is there, the love that person has given you is there, and she herself feels the love that you continue to feel for her. Try closing your eyes for a moment, concentrating on the beating of your heart, and you will feel a gentle breeze that caresses your skin for a moment. It is the caress of the soul.