If you have people that mean a lot to you, wonderful. Those people may do things that are unique or interesting to them, and they’ll share them with you. Those activities will become part of the shape of your relationship to that person. It’s not just you and them; it’s all those things in between, too.
Someday, that person will leave this world. But when they do, those things don’t leave with them – they’re part of the world. They can feel unattached, like one half of a suspension bridge. So we look for other places to attach them.
We share them. We teach others those things, as a way of passing memories about the person we lost. And so that person continues to shape the world in which we live, forever changing how we live our lives, as we build their memory and their presence into our daily existence.
And then, that thing becomes something unique and interesting to us, that someone else perceives as a fundamental part of their relationship to us. We are important to them as they are important to us, and our traditions build a space around us. We make a warm and fun and interesting quilt of all these strange little quirks, and we can see the shapes of ghosts and angels in the pattern.
We will miss you, but you aren’t gone from us. How can you be, when you shape the very world we live in? We will add to that world and pass it on, and while we’re here we will play and sing and laugh and carry the joys that you taught us.
The Opportunity Machine 