Indeed! I think this is a part of successful Playing in the Last Quarter ... of accepting the unfoldings ... generation after generation. Children, Grand-children.
I suppose another core part is the ability to share in the sadness. An ex-student of mine -- now, I suppose, a 55'ish year old man -- wrote about the death of his Mother, at 90.
Sad when we lose our people ....
My religious tradition says two different things in confronting death ....
Baruch Dayan Emes .... Blessed is the Truthful Judge (upon hearing that someone important to a friend has died)
and
HaMakom Y'nachem eschem b'sh'ar aveilei Yrushalalayim .... this one's harder to translate .... usually it's rendered as May God (literally The Place or, I suppose, The Cosmos) bring you comfort (tho, that word used for comfort has more the meaning of Bring You Around) among the rest of the Mourners of Jerusalem, etc.
Much seemed to change in my view of the World as I had to say good-bye to my Mother, even tho she had been victim of Alzheimers for many years and under the spell of both inner and outer directed aphasias. I needed to be "Brought Around" to a new place .... Later, I chose the words "NACHAMU" for my license plate ... it's the imperative form of that same verb "Y'Nachem ... Nachamu" that calls out from Isaiah 41 and begins Handl's Messiah .... Nachamu, Nachamu Ami ... Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye, My People .... says your God. Or as I would have it "Come Around! Come Around!"
May it be that through the door of deep sadness, that we do, indeed, all come around to integrate that cleansing sadness and its cousin, the welcome state of song-infused joys.
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