“Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.” ~ Ann Landers
Love doesn’t stop at the Hospice door or even the grave…
Love, in fact, is eternal.
Truly an eternal flame that ignites our hearts with hope and illuminates our future with clarity.
I have given a great deal of thought to this recently.
Jan and I loved each other to the very end.
She fought the rarest form of cancer known to man.
She did everything humanly possible and still lost.
God’s Will.
A year has passed and I am now moving forward with my life—hoping to love and be loved again.
But, here’s the paradox.
I continue to love Jan MORE each day, even though she is not here to love me back.
No question, this is a matter of GRACE: Gratitude… Resilience… Authenticity… Creativity… and Empathy.
To love and be loved again is what all who have lost their loved ones desire.
The good news is, love does not die.
Love does not simply stop growing through death.
It grows stronger each day, perhaps creating new seeds of hope that germinate within.
As I think through this, I will address it fully in a new book, Love With Grace™: Beyond Hope.
Right now, I have followed my own advice and moved Beyond Acceptance to find a wonderful new life filled with laughter, fun, freedom, and the flickering hope of a new love.
A love that will not replace my love for Jan.
But a love that will make the rest of my life the action-adventure I pray it will be.
Like the old song from Timbuk 3, “My future’s so bright I gotta wear shades!”
God Bless,
Eric Richard Haas
The Bridge of Grace That Reaches Beyond Acceptance
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