Celebrate!

After the events of today, most of you are probably thinking that the title of this blog is cold-hearted. I hope that you will read it to the end...and be pleasantly surprised.

After the loss of a loved one, all of us at one time or another have been told the following in one form or another: "don't worry - they are in a better place now". Let's have a collective scream. There. Feel better? Yeah, not so much. We all hate to hear that, because at the time, it's not what we WANT to hear. We want to hear - well, nothing. During a time of such intense grief and pain, there are no words. For at that time we just want the nightmare to be over, for our loved one to still be there, to touch them, hear them, see them...

In today's social networking crazy society, we were able to share thoughts, memories and prayers - while grieiving the loss of a very special young woman. As I read all of the comments, I couldn't help but be reminded of the popular essay - "The Dash". Our sweet friend has been gone from us for less than 24 hours, and already, details of her dash are everywhere. Smiles, love, laughter, kindness, silliness, craziness, compassion, happy, joyful are only a fraction of the words that I've read and heard.
Even though she is no longer with us, she is doing what she did best - taking care of others. She lived her life with a purpose, on purpose and for a purpose. If you spent more than 5 seconds anywhere near her, she touched you - whether you realized it at the time or not. And now that she is gone, we can't help but recall the special moments, or seconds, spent with her. While we may be sad, it's almost difficult to talk about J without smiling or laughing, or both - which I believe, is precisely the way she planned it. And just in case there were a few people who she didn't meet or leave an impact on while she was with us, she left us with the biggest part of her...little e.

While instinct says we should cry and be sad and mourn the loss of such a great person, I think we would be remiss if we didn't celebrate her life and do our best to live more and more as she did. Even in the toughest fight of her life, her sweet spirit and incredible faith remained intact. As did her smile. The dreaded disease that invaded her body could not take away her ability to communicate.

After all that she did for us while she was here, the least we can do is to remember her as she intended - and that is to celebrate her life. How can we not celebrate someone who mentioned shoes in her wedding vows, incorporated light sabers into her wedding reception, hung an entire hallway of pictures crooked, danced on a swiss ball and always, always, always had a smile?

God Bless you all, ePBJ