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Excerpt from the Introduction to Living Beyond Grief:

I am a person of feelings more than of any other sense. I love to see and hear beauty, to touch a wealth of textures. I love the tastes of chocolate and of falling snow, but feelings are where I live. This has made it difficult to explain the state of my heart to the many who have asked in the last 13 years, since my son John died, “How do you go on?”
     I know that I go on because that’s what I do. As I said in Black Hole: Unexpected Tool for Joyous Living, “I only know how to live. I don't know how to not live.” My heart keeps beating because that’s what it was designed to do....
     In spite of the pain, my heart kept beating and I learned to live around that pain, to focus on the life that continued around me. To more fully show once again my wholehearted love for my other children, my grandchildren, friends and family. To live and love because those are what I do, and I had learned that my heart was whole enough to be used.

Your heart keeps beating because you move on and do the things you know that you can do and that is live life to its fullest. Moving on does not mean that you forget. Living your life to the fullest is also, I imagine, what John would want you to do.
 – Kevin Dawson, son, husband, father

More from Living Beyond Grief:

When my son John died, it took a while for me to recognize the change in my life that most honors him, after which I made it intentional and incorporated it even further into myself. John radiated joy. He wasn't always happy, but the joy was always there. The most blatant way in which I choose to honor John in my life is to stay in touch with laughter, something I didn't always do before he died because for 17 years he was there to do it for me.
     Today, thinking about how to continue honoring Stephanie, I decided to do what I can to perpetuate her love for life and living by making sure that every day I do something on purpose that is a reach for more life, for more truly living the life I have. By doing this, I can wrap my love for her around life more than around sorrow, remembering not to take this wonderful gift of life for granted. (My tear ducts don't seem to have gotten the message just yet, but they will – on their own schedule, not on mine.) I will forever think of her when I see anything related to Barbie, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and the I Love Lucy show.
     I wish you many opportunities to honor those you love, especially while they're still around.

Black Hole:
unexpected tool for joyous living
(second edition)
Chas Ridley
ISBN 1-890894-27-3 (e-book)

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Portions copyright 1999 Dan Ridley, used with permission.
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Chas Ridley, PO Box 1290, Mt. Shasta, CA, USA