Eddie — 6/11/79 – 10/12/04

In Ancient Greece, it was believed that the souls of the great and good dwelt in the Elysium after their deaths. Heroes, bards, poets, those who’d helped others, those who’d led righteous lives, lived on in a place of peace and beauty, sunlight and joy, where they had no sense of the long separation between themselves and those they loved in the mortal realm. They were able to hear the thoughts of those left behind, whenever they were remembered on earth in memory and story.

I’ve always loved to think of the afterlife like that. With all those I’ve loved and lost sitting and standing and cooking, chatting amongst themselves, hearing us as we remember them with our laughter and our tears – a nice big family reunion, so to speak.

Eddie, we miss you every day.

 

Nicholas Evans, from The Smokejumper:

Walk Within You

[...] For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.

What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,

Be still.
Clear your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.

I am not gone but merely walk within you.