deeper things - life, after dying, revives

I feel like getting away from the title "lessons learned" ...it just started to sound very pompous to me. I also feel like adding a few poems. This poem may be about death or dying, but to me it is more about living, and the realization that even when we go through death, literal or figurative, there is life on the other side. There has been life before cancer, during cancer, there will be life after cancer... there is life after loss and grief; even in the midst of loss and grief, if I was willing to listen and remember, I was carrying all the large and small joys of my life in my heart...listen, if you are in the valley, just listen...there is another voice to hear, faint and distant though it may appear. Someone once anonymously posted a comment (after a post entitled "dayenu") and used the phrase "whispering dayenu." I am not sure what that person meant...but I know what the comment meant to me. Sometimes, in the midst of pain, I could not jump up and down with joy, and the best I was able to do (and only at best) was whisper with the faintest wisp of gratitude...whoever wrote that comment...I was so moved by it and those two words that I carry them with me.

Give a listen to this poem...tell me what it sounds like to you...I think it is recited quite nicely, (especially the pause right before the words "then journey on..." Hearing a poem gives such a different perspective than reading it...I will put the poem in print below the video, if you insist on reading it, but at least try to listen along while you read. It's an oldie but goodie, written by Emily Bronte in the mid 1800's. Be quiet, and in quiet listen to the poem. Please tell me how it speaks to you




There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning;
While evening pours its silent dew,
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair--though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart for ever?

They weep, you weep, it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And winter sheds its grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
Yet, these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted:
Then, journey on, if not elate,
Still, NEVER broken-hearted!