Dear Y,
I learned from C. of your father’s passing. Whatever age a loved one leaves us and whatever their state of health, it is always too soon because they leave behind a void that is all the greater when our bonds with them were close. For a daughter, the paternal figure holds such importance that this departure shakes her to her deepest roots.
We must certainly make room for sadness which, like all emotions, must be expressed. Sometimes it is not felt immediately, but it must not be suppressed when it surfaces. However, whether expressed or suppressed, sadness must not take up all the space. It would be too selfish to think only of ourselves and to overlook the fact that, for the departed person, this departure is a liberation, especially when their earthly existence had become painful for them.
You are not unaware that our existence is not reduced to our visible part and to the form it takes in this world. Our relationship with the beings we have encountered is not meant to stop. In all religions, devotees pray to one or more invisible beings whom they have never seen. Why could we not continue to commune with beings who exist and whom we have seen and encountered? The only reason would be that we give more importance to this body which is only a garment than to the being who wears it.
Each time you think of your father, do not think that he ”was”, but rather that he ”is”. There will be a voice that rises within you to contradict this reality, but this voice is not right. Pay no attention to it.
It has been said that to conquer death, one must learn to die while living. Life takes care of making us undergo this learning throughout our existence, among other things during separations of all kinds. In doing so, it teaches us that behind the necessarily changing and non-eternal forms, hides an eternal presence. For what we call ”death” is not the opposite of life, but rather that of birth. And these two phenomena of appearance and disappearance are inscribed at the heart of life which, itself, is eternal.
You have all my sympathy.