The sudden unexpected death of someone close who we rely on for warmth and hope leaves a gaping hole that is literally a wound in our existence. The same can be so for a death that is a long time in the making, and expected, because it is a loss of what is dear to us.
At first we are confronted with absence. Where once there was comfort and inspiration, suddenly there is pain. It hurts to recall the strengths of this person because to animate their memory is to emphasise their distance and test our ability to come to grips with what seems like a permanent disconnection.
Over time, inevitably, as we visit this absence again and again, we see our loss for what it is - the deep impression made by a human being who moved us with a strength of character and and intimate meaning on a deeply personal scale.
At some point, we may begin to see this absence as something more than the personal impression made upon us, and more than just our loss, great though that is.
The space left by the departure of our beloved is never empty. It is the measure of the person. It is them - in silhouette - and we visit them with the respect they command. To see them in this way is to start to reconnect with the strength and joy they brought us, for their energy is still a part of us and it lives on in surprising ways.
We might not even have recognised their presence in us when we expected there would always be more of them to come. But in their absence, we see their silhouette again and again in our daily existence, in the way we respond to the things they used to respond to. They surprise us with their presence every day. In difficult times and in joy, suddenly, there they are. We know exactly what they would have said because we hear them say it. They are with us.
When we see a loved one in this light, we see them in their entirety for the first time. The extent of their reach is revealed to us each time we see them appear anew in the space we at first thought we had been banished to alone.
We weren't alone, and we aren't alone, because the connection we enjoyed has made us who we are, and we are still that person - the composition of our selves and the person who helped to make us who we are. That never changes. It just keeps growing, because each day, as we live our lives being who we are, we touch other people with the same forces that once shaped us. It is then that we begin to see their soul live on through us, with us, beyond us and all around us.