Lately I’ve been spending some time pondering alternate views, not so much as an exercise in itself, just reflecting on a concept and asking the question “yeah, well what about the other way?” One of the more interesting recently is the thought that perhaps when people leave us, they take a part of our souls with them. I have long believed that we can hold a part of their souls with us when they pass on, but really didn’t think about the other side of that coin.
We are shaped by the people we love. They influence the way we see and experience the world and our role in it, the way we love, and even the way we understand ourselves. Every meaningful relationship weaves its threads, and in them, we give pieces of ourselves away. That’s what love requires. But we never feel like we’ve lost those pieces; in fact the opposite is true – we feel good that we’ve been blessed to share those parts of ourselves.
When death comes, it doesn’t simply remove a person from our lives. It tears at the bond that exists between us. Perhaps this is why grief is often described as an ache that settles deep within the soul. It is not merely an emotional pain, but the awareness and the process of accepting that there is an empty space where this love once flourished. The soul recognizes this absence long before the mind can fully process it, if ever.
If those we love take a piece of our soul with them when they die, perhaps, and hopefully, they also leave a piece of theirs with us. Without needing conscious thought, we carry them with us every day. So this love is never truly lost. It changes form. At death, we are not only mourning the passing of a life; we are also mourning the loss of a loving part of our own. The people we have lost continue to influence our lives, not as shadows that cloud us, but as lights that guide us. Their absence hurts because their presence mattered. Their influence remains because genuine love cannot just disappear.
Thinking of it this way, grief is not a problem to be solved; it is not something to get over; there is no return to ‘normal’, to what once was, no matter how much time has passed. It is the natural consequence of loving someone deeply. And, that love is worth it. In this grief are the sacred spaces that remind us how blessed we are to love and to be so loved.
The soul is not diminished by loving another, even though the loss makes it now feel incomplete. Instead, it is a tapestry woven from every life it has touched. Though each farewell carries away a precious thread, another is always gifted to us, binding us to those we have loved across the boundaries of time and death.
In the end, we do not simply survive these “losses” —we carry them as sacred reminders that to love deeply is to be a part of something eternal.