Dealing with Loss

Hi! Today I wanted to talk to you a little bit about how to talk to kids about grief and death. Unfortunately, we lost a very dear friend, Shimon, two days ago. And that brought something that I thought I would like to share with you. I wanted, of course, to tell my kids, they knew him very well, and to have a conversation about the fact that he passed away. And what I felt as this painful situation occurred is really that strong sense of humbleness, of how we really do not know how this Universe is operating. We do not know why, why him, why now? Why at all. And when I spoke to my kids about it and presented it this way where I do not have an answer, I do not have a good answer to tell you "why him and why now?" And I do not have a good answer to what you could have done differently to avoid it. And I know, as we live on a spiritual path and we would like to be, you know, have a spiritual insight into life, we really try to get answers and kind of formula of how things work, and if I do x, y and z, that a, b and c will not happen. And there is something a little bit that I found about creating a cultural fear. And that is what I really wanted to free my kids from, is living in the sense of "life is a mystery". It is a big and complex puzzle. And we will never have the whole picture. We will at most probably see half of it. So when things happen, if we keep that sense of humbleness without judging right or wrong, without judging: "Oh, how could that happen? How did that happen? This is not fair! This is ok, this is not ok". Is really to keep that consciousness of "I do not know", but all I know that this is what happened right now, and how can I move forward from it? How can I help the people that are left behind. What can I do? What is it showing me? What is it revealing something new that I did not know, I did not learn or I did not see yesterday? And living with that awareness will probably help us to hold on to a space that is more real, less judgmental and curious. Because I really do not know what is going to happen next, I do not know what is going to happen a minute later. So if we hold that space of "life is a wonder, one big wonder", and it reveals itself slowly but surely, and I can see, all I can really see is what is happening right now. And all I want to be engaged with is what I am doing right now, and that how what I do right now moves me forward, how what I do right now helps other people. And that is what I shared with them. Because there are really no words. 58-years-old man getting a heart attack and dying in a split of a second. Who can explain that? He was a tremendous, a big soul who helped so many people, who did so many amazing, wonderful things in the world. So that sense of humbleness and that sense of "there is so much more than what we see", and that is ok. And being less rigid about what we think we need to do or what we do not need to do or judging each other about certain things there is no place for that when you live in a humble place of "I do not know what is coming next", but whatever it is I am going to do my best to be present in it, overcome it, face it, learn from it. So really in a memory of Shimon: I love you very much. You were a special man, always kind and always really trying to do the right thing and sometimes more for others than for yourself.