Do you ever think about friends and relatives who passed away?

Sure. I remember them. Is my mom looking down on me from heaven? Wouldn’t that be nice. Hi, Mom! That would be nice right up until I find myself in bed with a woman. Then it would be disconcerting. Do you mind, Mom? I read that there are heaven believers that suffer from this.

Anyway, yeah, I remember my friends and family fondly. I think about where we’d all be if they’d lived. These are pleasant moments for me. But that’s about it.

I think about the people I love that have passed on quite a bit, hope they are doing well if there is an after life, and hope I make the grade to see them again one day if there is.

Go today and write your old friend a letter of apology for not speaking to him. Do it right now. Do not blame him or explain anything. Just say,

“I am sorry we stopped speaking to each other. I miss you and I want to reconnect with you. Hugs.”

Then mail it today. No matter what happens, you need to know you have cleaned your side of the street and did what you could.

I think not of how my friends and relatives who have passed are doing today, but fondly of memories of them.

I forget about them the next day.

Yes—especially my mom and dad. They come up in my stories and in my dreams. I attended a workshop recently in which the subject of Fathers was discussed, and I found myself remembering (and tearing up) over many memories, good and bad. I lost my mom two years ago this month, and memories of her are with me constantly. I really miss her.

The last time I saw my older brother we had a knock-down drag-out fight fueled on pot and Johnny Walker. We wrecked his apartment in the process. He was suffering PTSD from just getting home from two tours in Nam and I was a twenty year-old smart ass with all the answers who didn’t take shit off anybody. Afterward, I went home to my apartment with the intention of never speaking to him again. Two weeks later, he was at my door. He knocked a few times and called my name. I knew he knew I was there, but I wasn’t ready. I remember hearing his footsteps fade away from my door like it happened last night.

A week later, he was killed working on a repair track for the railroad. He was caught in a coupling from the shoulders up while walking between train cars when the train started to move. A couple of days later, I escorted his body home on a plane to our mother in Florida.

For awhile it bothered me that refusing to answer the door that day didn’t bother me. It should have, but it didn’t. But that feeling soon passed, because my brother and I knew each other like the backs of our hands. We’d had many adventures together from the time we were knee-high to just before he left for Nam. I knew he loved me and he knew I loved him. We’d fought before, but we were bigger and the damage was more surprising. We were brothers. It would have been fixed at the next Christmas. These things always fixed themselves at Christmas. Mom, the great referee, wouldn’t have it any other way. Christmas just came to late that year.

It was just one of those things that happen to people. And today, I think about him with no regrets, only love. I miss him terribly and am well aware of all the life events we would have shared together. But that is the way it is. Shit happens to everybody.

I knew by brother well. If it were he who lived, he would have lived his life to fullest. I determined to do just that.

I often think of those I have known who are now dead. I am closer to many of them than I am to the living. I hear their voices and see their faces constantly and I like to remember them and talk about them with those who knew them.

No. Only the ghosts of pets passed. I am totally at peace with the dead people in my life but I miss some of my old pets.

I think about family, friends and pets, not obsessively, some more than others, depending on circumstances. When a friend dies, I think of other friends that have died. Now that two of my cats are getting older, I think of cats that have passed on and I dread the pain that will come when these two die.

Well, occasionally I’ll say something to my son and then think “Wow, I sound like Grandma”, and sometimes that’s a good thing.

That’s about it. I don’t hold any belief in an afterlife.

Sure, I think about people who died but I don’t think they’re in heaven or anywhere else but in my mind.

Yes, I think of them, and from time to time see them in dreams.

Only my grandmother. I don’t believe she is anywhere, but I wish she could be. She deserves Heaven. I often wish I could still talk to her sometimes.

Often. I might hear a song or see a film or do something or hear a phrase and they pop into my mind. Or perhaps I’m experiencing something I wish I could share with them. They’re part of my life and they always will be, they just aren’t here with me.

To this day I have only witness three deaths that were personal to me: my dog’s, my grandpa’s and that of a good friend, so that may not be as much as everyone here. I think about them often. They can come to me at any time, expected or not, like hearing a song or seeing two people doing the same thing I did with them.

Generally I accept that there is nothing I can do to bring them back and the only way to honor them is to be a better person, but each person changes me in a different way. I have more love and care for animals after my dog’s death, I strive to study harder to fulfill my grandpa’s wish, and as for the good friend, I’m trying to carry on our plans and dreams without their help.

Every day.

And today I learned a dear friend, who was in my wedding over 25 years ago, my old ski buddy and backpacking friend, a friend who had been a big support in my sobriety, took his own life yesterday.

He had apparently withdrawn from many people since I spoke to him just six weeks ago, and had apparently lost a lot of weight. No word yet on whether he was in bad health, but I have been sobbing all morning.