Francine - Thank you. I'm so honored that you chose to share your experience with your mom's passing. My thought is that when the lines left her face, and she looked serene, by then her spirit had left her body, so she no longer felt the pain, and she was standing with the angels watching you, saying goodbye, loving you, embracing you in that love. She did the best she could to be sure you would be all right - consummate, pure and perfect mother's love. It's really Divine love, I believe. And then she allowed her body to die. What a gift she gave you.

Dotsie - Wow. Thank you. You, too, bless me with your sharing - to lose Mom in such a way - so difficult to get through. Yes, I agree it can be beautiful. To be with someone in their final moments is the most intimate, loving experience we can have, even though it is ripping our hearts out. I agree about the hospice helpers being such a God-send. My boyfriend, Gary, died in the hospice unit of a hospital.

Eagle Heart - Thank you, too, for sharing your heart with me. Three years can be an interminable amount of time to feel the pain/the loss. Getting over Gary's death took me years, even though I made a new life for myself with a loving man. The loss remained. Thankfully, he was mature and loving enough to allow me to heal myself as I needed to. And when it is your mother - I remember what Aunt Lottie, my grand aunt, said once. Her mother had been gone probably twenty years by then. Aunt Lottie was probably eighty years old when she said, "Without your mother, what do you have...?" Her words trailed off into infinity.

Aunt Lottie was a strong, spiritual, old woman. She was 45 years older than me. When I asked her how she dealt with all the losses, she said most of the time she was all right with it, but once in a while they ganged up on her.

A dear friend, Tosca, died, a death I did not hear about until 9 months afterwards, and I learned about it when I was in the middle of handling another crisis. I couldn't put Tosca's death to rest. She was someone I thought would live to be very old. She could heal herself quickly of any health malady. She was loving, pure of spirit, talented, creative. So when I learned of her death I was stunned. She was 76. I felt cheated, the loss unacceptable. This went on for two years. I am a painter, and I'm learning to do likeness. I love painting people. So I decided to paint a picture of Tosca. While I was painting this picture I talked aloud to her. I told her how upset I was that she had died. I told her how I missed her. I talked to her about a lot of things. By the time the painting was complete, I had accepted her death.

I think it was Eienstein who said, "We stand on the shoulders of giants." Aunt Lottie and Tosca are two of the giants I stand on. I am a better person because of them. But oh, I miss them so much sometimes. So much. And yes, I'm glad they are in a place where they can learn and grow. But for me, selfishly....

The death of the physical body leaves the rest of us perplexed how to deal with it on this level. I mean, even when we have a belief that says the person's spirit is now with God, and they are fine, still.... We have a void, an emptiness. Mom/Dad/our loved one is no longer sitting in their favorite chair. The house where they lived rings with the emptiness, even if others are present. We can no longer touch their skin. We can no longer see the love, the ways they could get upset, hear the things they have to say. I was amazed after my boyfriend, Gary, died how quickly I forgot what his voice sounded like. I longed to hear his voice again. After Dad died I longed to see him sitting in the easy chair pretending not to have tears in his eyes when he watched a sad movie. I longed to have my loved ones alive again, so they could annoy me. Yes, annoy me. We always talk about the good qualities in our loved ones who have died. But let's face it, all of them annoyed us at times, and we annoyed them.

And then there are those well-meaning people who say to us, "Turn it over to God. He will comfort you." Yes, of course, but during the worst of the pain, I long to touch the other person's skin. God doesn't have skin I can touch. The physical emptiness rings in pain.

I've come to believe that we are God's skin.

Vi