My mother is dying. Try saying that five times without getting teary-eyed or feeling a tight squeeze in your heart. It doesn’t matter if it is true for you now, or not yet, or in the past. The pain is saddening, confusing, and inevitable.

We’ve all lost someone close to us. Sometimes in an acute rupture that comes with a head-on crash, no time to say the last good bye, the last “I love you. Thank you for being my friend.” And many of us have coped with long-term illness in those we care about. Witnessed the lingering, the wasting away, unsure when to acknowledge that the road has but one end.

We tend to assume this will happen more often as we age, that the ones we lose will be older than we are. But it isn’t necessarily true. We can lose children, friends, colleagues, mentors, even our favorite clerk at the market. And each passing leaves a hole, be it small or large, momentary or permanent, in our hearts.

We all have different ways of reconciling such a passing. With our spiritual beliefs we can comfort ourselves, but no matter how hard and close we clasp them, there is always a gap, a fracture, a deep visceral desire for one more hug, one more conversation, one more shared laugh.

It’s not that we’re greedy, but that we care. That the joys of being human come from the moments of connectedness, of sharing a good recipe or book with one another, from being together on adventures and explorations, or in the domestic harmony of our homes, from knowing that there is someone to call and talk to, no matter how foolish or stressed we may feel.

Death seems to shatter that connection. It cleaves a deep chasm into our hearts. We feel bereft and empty. Helpless.

Grief holds many lessons for us, though we are rarely ready to embrace them. We push them off, waiting till after the last moment of breath, unready to welcome their teachings, perhaps simply not believing the momentous hurt until our loved one is really gone.

That’s when need to go inward, need to pull out the pictures, mental and physical. When we need to remember.

There’s no substitute for having your mother, friend, partner, child in your living room, or in your arms. But there is still a lot that our departed and departing have to teach us. And it would be wise for us to pay attention, since this transition process is inevitably part of being human.

We need to go to the core, get past the old hurts (small, huge, or imagined), past life’s busy pace and mundane annoyances, past the un-met expectations. When someone is dying it is time to remember who this soul is to our own. If it’s a parent, there is the gift of life. If a friend, the years of being there, helping us grow and adjust to life’s curve balls. If a partner or child, all the nurturing and joy that comes from loving and being loved in family.

What can we do when the time comes to say good-bye? We can say it with all the love that we feel, that we have ever felt, with all the strength we can muster through the tears. We can say it with appreciation, with tenderness, with compassion, and with sadness, for their loss and our own.

If you have the chance to say it aloud, directly, then do it. Don’t miss any opportunity to say I love you. Tell your friends and family regularly how much you care. Wash the slate clean in your heart and speak from the truth of your knowing and your connection, lest they be suddenly taken. And if you have the grace of time to allow their passing slowly, then offer them a gentle path, one filled with tenderness and caring.

It’s really very simple. Just say, I love you. I have loved knowing you.

And when the ending happens, remind yourself that you never have to say goodbye. Because you can continue to remember.

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