01/24/2026
Reflections After a Celebration of Life
Today I attended a celebration of life for a woman I hadn’t seen in over forty years. Back then, I had strong feelings for her. She mattered to me.
What surprised me most wasn’t the passage of time—it was the feeling in the room. There was a quietness that went beyond respect. A noticeable lack of emotion. Fewer people than I expected. I found myself wondering if Kristy lived a smaller, quieter life, or if she simply didn’t have many people around her when she passed.
A few months ago, my mother died. Her service was very different—larger, fuller, heavier with emotion. I was her caregiver at the end, so my grief ran deep. There was history there. There was complexity.
And that’s where the questions began.
Kristy was one of the sweetest, kindest souls you could meet—gentle, caring, unassuming. My mother, whom I loved, was often difficult to be around for much of my life. She had many friends, yet also carried toxic patterns that affected those closest to her.
So I found myself wondering:
If someone has many friends but still causes harm, does that mean parts of them were hidden?
And if someone is genuinely kind and loving, does that always translate into deep, lasting connections—or is goodness sometimes quiet and unseen?
Then the lens turned inward.
What will my own service look like someday?
Will people come?
Have I created relationships that run deep, or have I stayed too guarded, too focused on healing rather than connecting?
And then came the deeper question.
Why do we spend so much of our lives worrying about how others see us, how much we matter, who will remember us—when the truth is, once we leave this body, most of us are forgotten far sooner than we’d like to believe?
From a spiritual perspective, maybe the soul doesn’t measure a life by attendance or applause.
Maybe Spirit measures in something quieter.
In the love we embodied.
In the healing we allowed to move through us.
In the moments when we chose compassion over protection, presence over performance.
Maybe our lives aren’t meant to be remembered by many, but felt deeply by a few.
And maybe the real question isn’t “Will I be remembered?”
But “Did I live in alignment with my soul while I was here?”
I’m curious—what do you believe truly matters at the end of a life?
