To love someone is to wish them to live forever; Madeleine L’ Engle quoted someone who said something similar; but more startlingly beautiful; I think it may have even been someone like one of the Orthodox saints who said this…
It is so hard to let those you love go; I do not know what I would do if I did not have the church and being able to pray for those who have died. My friends who are protestant, bless them, say things like ‘well we know that person does not need prayer anymore’ or ‘glad to know they are in heaven now’; it seems so empty and sad. A shut door, an END instead of a continuation of life in God and to continue to pray for a person as they continue the completion of a life loving and seeking God.
I do like the concept of a persons life on earth being in the final completion at the point of death; that then it is all summed up, suddenly complete, finished; but not finished; nothing not being annihilation but something different; more than saying good bye to a decade of life; more like saying hello to a new life, yet a continued life.
Life after death—indescribable, not well known to us who are still on this side of death; yet real.
I think it is harder when someone you love dies and you did not know them to be sick, did not get to say goodbye; however temporary the goodbye.
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