Fractured

Listening to National Public Radio in the car yesterday, my life was interrupted by the discussion on the topic of "digital funerals".  I need to stream that program again.  Did I understand that I need not be present, that my death would no longer inconvenience friends and loved ones who were too busy to attend a physical memorial service?

WHAT THE HELL.

When did I become digitized to the exclusion of my blood and bones?  When did you? Is the physical body so disposable that the death of it is no longer at the center of deepest loss?

As for me, I am not your digitized scrapbook.  Those pictures are tiny fragments of my life. They don't tell the whole story.  They're not meant to and I don't want you to give permission to my digital executor for their eventual release.

If I was important in your life or if you are relieved not to have me here anymore, my wish is for you to honor what we had by taking the time and effort to send me into the universe permanently.
I fully expect you to stop everything you are doing at the moment you are notified and make plans to
get to the designated place at the designated time.

I can't imagine not having attended the funerals for those I loved.  The pain was exquisitely
essential in my soul's journey.  Knowing that their voice, their smell, their touch would never
come again, allowed me closure.  The closure allowed me to breathe again. Loss is the deepest personal
emotion for me; more so than joy. Loss teaches me how to be a kinder person, a more loving woman, a more tolerant human being.

I don't want the burden of revisiting memories.  Life has enough interruptions as it is.  Balancing the high wire of what-ifs is not my style. Remembering and honoring one's memory are not synonymous.

Being thankful for relationships and wanting to relive them is not the same.  I choose to be thankful and refuse to dwell on how my life was changed or enhanced or nearly destroyed. I let go and focus on today.

Do I still mourn?  Of course-sometimes decades later. Do I have tangible remembrances?  Yes.  Do I want to click and relive moments?  No, I do not.

Do not define me in fragments. I gave you all I was. My relationship with you was not meant to be shared. My time with you was not meant to be compared to my time with any other. Understand that you were singularly important in my life and in my life's purpose. Promise me that my entirety will not end up like pieces in a digital jigsaw puzzle.  Promise me that your heart will have sufficient space to be the caretaker of our time together.  Honor me in ways that release my soul's continuing journey; for I am not finished.

Say goodbye as you gather at the river or under the canopy of stars. Honor me with your presence, mourn my passing with dignity and a final tear or call my name just once more for my spirit will be with you there, at that place and at that moment. Let me go, do not keep me prisoner in the fractured
pictures of my life.

I was oh so much more.