Life Goes On...

Kathleen Ahern

Children's Librarian

The past few weeks I’ve found myself both nettled and comforted by the words, “life goes on.” Life does indeed go on. It is a joyous thing that it does and yet, it has been challenging for me at times to hold onto that beauty, as my sweet husband and I have had three recent deaths come into our lives.  We lost two people we admired and were grateful to know. We also had to say goodbye to our beloved cat, Mr. Rogers.  All three of these deaths left us tearful, saddened and contemplative. As we work through our grief, we continue to search for meaning and comfort as life goes on.

Some of the comfort I hold onto came from an eight-year-old boy who was a student of mine over twenty years ago.  His prodigious insights and deep wisdom were well beyond his tender years. He was in my second grade class when I read aloud the book “Fig Pudding” by Ralph Fletcher.  It is a beautifully written story of a delightful family full of antics and exuberance and also about their journey of grief and healing over the tragic death of their eleven-year-old son and brother. I knew his death was coming into the story as I read aloud.  The children in my classroom did not.  So, when it happened, there was much emotion and so much to talk about.

As we processed our thoughts and feelings about the book, we learned so much. We learned it is good and necessary to cry. We learned that unfair things happen and sometimes there is nothing we can do to change them.  And we learned that life goes on.

I vividly remember that insightful eight-year old boy with both affection and awe.  As we were all sharing and listening to each other he said, “I think our birthday is one of the most important days of our life.  We learn what the date is for it when we get older and then it’s great because we know it’s our birthday.  But I just realized after we read this book that another really important day is when we die.  And we don’t know when that is going to be.  But, we pass by it on the calendar every year and we don’t even know it’s important. It’s kind of amazing. So, I think we should always try and do our best every day because we don’t know the day we’re going to die.”

As I type those words, I remain astonished at his wisdom.  They both comfort and inspire me.  I hope they do for you as well. And should you find yourself dealing with loss and grief, Neill Public Library can be of help. We have a wealth of books and other resources to support you and your loved ones.  Life goes on, so let’s try and do our best every day.