Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.

Love and loss are what lift a life beyond its small concerns. Love turns you toward others, and the awareness of death, your own or someone else’s, shows you how much that love matters while there is time. Whether you picture where they lead as heaven or simply as a life lived at its fullest, the two together carry you further than either could alone.

If you have lost someone, you may already know how grief and love become inseparable. There is no need to find anything uplifting in that before you are ready. When you can, let the love be what you carry forward, in how you treat the people still here.