Love is How You Stay Alive Even When You Are Gone

Love.

It’s what draws you to people, what connects you to people, what makes life worth living. Love is also the reason you feel pain and heartbreak.

It doesn’t matter if you knew it was coming. The finality hits you like a ton of bricks.

As I sit here with my broken heart, the tears just flow and flow.

I cry and I want to scream and I plead to understand. I want to know why God could be so seemingly cruel and take away the mother of four young children. Then I beg God to change his mind, or at least give me a logical understandable reason as to why he now took away those children’s father just six short months later.

Mercifully, my friend’s suffering is over, but that doesn’t make the pain of those who loved him any easier to bear. The amount of love he gave and the love he received was immeasurable.

He was a kind and good person, with a streak of stubborn that made him unique. All that keeps going through my head is how when he was diagnosed with advanced cancer, his wife cried and wondered aloud how it was possible that a person as good as he deserved that fate. She kept saying he was too good of a person to have to suffer like this.

I’m human and I have to grasp at explanations to keep my sanity. I try to find something that makes sense amidst chaos and emotional turmoil. I try to find a tiny bit of comfort from the knowledge that the love you felt from someone and the love you felt for someone is what stays with you when they are gone.

If I had the choice not to hurt but also not to love, then I would choose to be hurting right now. Because as bad as the pain is, love is what makes life meaningful.

Love is also how you stay alive even when you are gone.

Elad may you rest in peace alongside Neta. You two were special and your presence will always be felt. Not just because of the wonderful kids you had together, but because of all the love you gave and all the love you allowed others to give you.

And one last request. Since you guys are now in a place of all knowing, can you clue me in on God’s plan? It might help me sleep better at night, because right now, I’m just confused and heartbroken.