Achingly miss the departed. If we are the ones who keep living, there will be more losses. Is there some way this can make sense?

You sound as though you’ve lost someone.
My condolences, I don’t know what to say.

Or am I missing the point of the question?

In an interview with Bill Moyers, Joesph Campbell said, ”(Life is) a wonderful, wonderful opera, except that it hurts.”

C’est la vie. And I don’t mean that in a flip, dismissive way. Pain is part of life.

Sense is an illusion; a balm. Death is inevitable.

People are not really gone if they are remembered and talked about. Life is a temporary state, and we need to make the most of it.

Susan, my personal experience is “Sadly, no.” Although the story of the blankie being delivered to a needy child in India did make me laugh, a lot.

Yesterday (May 15th) was my mother-in-law’s birthday. Were she alive, my husband says, she would have been 101 years old. As it happened, she died many years ago and I never met her. But my husband remembers the birthdays of his deceased brothers and parents – he is the only survivor of his parents – to him they are still alive, but in another place, and I think he expects to meet them again. Where he comes from – Sierra Leone – it is customary to visit the grave of a friend or relative on an anniversary, such as a birthday. I think that is very civilized.