A Eulogy for the Passing of Old Friends.

Death and loss is difficult for any of us to cope with. But when they are thrust upon us by surprise, with malice, and premeditation, the losses are more profound. How can we cope with these losses and still be decent and caring people?

It always saddens us to lose something, or someone who has been an integral part of our lives for many years, or even for brief periods. Whether they were family, close friends, or just passing acquaintances.

This is a reminiscence of things past. There are familial deaths, expiration of friends, and public idols that we look up to .

There are also deaths of a psychological nature.

We seem to mourn the passing of friends and family for a short period then move on with our lives without them. We may miss them for a while, but we slowly or quickly learn to adapt, adjust and accept life for what it is:

revolving and evolving periods of prosperity and love, contrasted with more and deeper periods of sadness, coping and despair.

After all, there is nothing permanent in our lives, and we can do nothing about those loses. They are all part of life and we are taught to face the hardships with reality, fortitude and hope for a better tomorrow.

We, as individuals just trying to eke out a comfortable life, were not directly responsible for any of our unfortunate and painful losses. We did not cause them, want them, or anticipate their effects on our lives. We put our trust in God, Government and an blind faith that in the end, all things are for the best, per some great celestial plan for each of us in order to make our losses more palatable.

We are taught that trials, tribulations and losses are all part of a greater "plan" to make us a better person - and yet do those losses in our lives "really" make us a better person? We would like to believe that in the majority of times the answer is 'yes, they do'.

Only in our minds, and only as a coping mechanism, when losses are so devastating and cruel we cannot justify them rationally in any other way. We would rather scream, cry, protest, or chastise those unknowns responsible for such profound losses, but all to no avail.

We even go so far as to assert that:

• without pain, we cannot appreciate comfort.
• without hate, we cannot appreciate love.
• without sorrow, we cannot appreciate happiness
• without wars, we cannot appreciate peace.
• without oppression, we cannot appreciate freedom.
• without death, we cannot appreciate life.
• the list goes on forever.

These euphemisms are endless - and all of them quite pointless when losses occur in our lives.

we learn to make lemonade.

Reality of losses in life do not justify negativity. Our losses are profound and cannot be rationalized away so easily by some trite sayings meant, i am sure, to console us.

Our base religions teach us that sorrows, trials and tribulations in our life are prerequisite to happiness in the next life, after death. No one has ever returned to tell us of this "truth", or to deny it, or confirm it.

What if all those deaths and losses of our past could have been prevented?

Would we then not be as eligible for entrance into that proverbial fairy tale Nirvana postmortem?

Ah, yes, this Nirvana - the final beatitude that transcends suffering, Karma, and Samara; and is sought through the extinction of desire and individual consciousness, pleasures and needs fulfilled. That state of oblivion to care, pain or external reality. That place of bliss, happiness or heaven. That dream of a contentious goal hoped for, but apparently unattainable - for it is just but a dream. Just a dream.

What if we could stop and look back, in retrospect, and discover that all of those wonderful friends we knew as children, and who we be believed would stay with us throughout our entire lives, were stolen from us by the hands of others?

Would this then anger us?

Would we lose faith in all those silly euphemisms, oxymoron's, parables, or anecdotes of hopes and promises never to be?

Well, my friends I am here to tell you that the losses of our dear friends, which i speak of today, were in fact wrested from our lives with such ferocity and no concern for our (both yours and mine) sense of stability, pain or loss. Nay, they were removed from our lives for a much more sinister purpose - to cause us this very pain, sorrow and hardship; and beat us down into submissiveness, robbed of our souls, freedoms, hopes, comforts and ultimately our very lives.

So let us mourn the loss of our dear friends while we still can. We cannot bring any of them back as individuals, but perhaps collectively there might be a flicker of memorial to their lives left hidden somewhere deep within the recesses of our subconscious minds.

If we can put names to those old friends of ours, their memories will last a little longer in our minds.

So for your perusal, here is a partial list of the names of some of the dead, the deceased, the de facto, the defunct, the defalcated and the defecated:

Read their names and weep for all of our losses:

• Dignity
• Honesty
• Decency
• Compassion (for others)
• Love (of humanity)
• Empathy (for others)
• Caring (about others)
• Desires (for a better life)
• Dreams (of a better tomorrow)
• Faith (in our Gods)
• Faith (in our Government)
• Pride (In our society)
• Hopes (for a better future)
• as well as:
• All the beautiful flowers so painstakingly planted that give us all brief pleasure but all must wither and fade away in the end
• and more painfully, those beautiful humans stricken from our lives prematurely.

For these dear friends, were all once a very significant part of our lives.

Now gone, but not forgotten.

They do still live and thrive, but only somewhere within the dark recesses of the mind and in the subconscious.

And those intangibles listed above - metaphorically destroyed by the world of the few who control our lives and who have caused their demise - and continue to ruin our lives, dreams and aspirations, with their incessant greed.

Yes, this is a eulogy for the passing of intangibles, but none the less painful in our lives. We can keep those losses alive within ourselves with a little effort. And hopefully give them back to those around us be example.

by d.william