Like so many others, I have known the ache of losing those I love—my father, my mother, and my brother among them. It was the death of my mother thirty years ago that first drove me to search for answers within my grief. Where had she gone? Is there life beyond death? What is our true purpose? If God exists, why must this life hold so much pain?

Over the decades, that search has led me to a quiet certainty: there is a purpose to our existence, and we remain forever connected to the ones we have lost. The poet Rupert Brooke expressed this beautifully in his poem, “The Soldier.” The short verse below draws inspiration from his lines “ and think this heart all evil shed away…a pulse in the eternal mind, no less” . I offer this hoping to comfort anyone currently navigating the raw, overwhelming pain of grief.

For thou hast gone my love

Released to be

A pulse in the  eternal mind, no less

It’s thus that we

Flow forward on our journey, thee with me

As part my heart, one part

One melody

Within the universal song we’ll rest

In harmony

With that life, whose loving sets us free.