Associate Editor, Liz Wessel, kindly reminds us to honor National Hospice Month. One way is to engage one of the finest writers of poetic prose: the late John O'Donohue. The ancient Greeks created gods that can help ease our fears as well. Hermes, for example, shuttled between the living and the unseen gods. One of them must have whispered the words below into O'Donohue's ear. Thank you, Facebook friend David Hoover, for sharing those words here:

   "The dead are not distant or absent. They are alongside us. When we lose someone to death, we lose their physical image and presence, they slip out of visible form into invisible presence.

   "This alteration of form is the reason we cannot see the dead. But because we cannot see them does not mean that they are not there.

   "Transfigured into eternal form, the dead cannot reverse the journey and even for one second re-enter their old form to linger with us a while. Though they cannot reappear, they continue to be near us and part of the healing of grief is the refinement of our hearts whereby we come to sense their loving nearness.

   "When we ourselves enter the eternal world and come to see our lives on earth in full view, we may be surprised at the immense assistance and support with which our departed loved ones have accompanied every moment of our lives. In their new, transfigured presence their compassion, understanding and love take on a divine depth, enabling them to become secret angels guiding and sheltering the unfolding of our destiny."*

Thank you, John O'Donohue, for showing how the dead can heal and protect us!

-Erie Chapman

*Excerpt from his books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace & Divine Beauty

**Erie's Photo – "The Dawning of Night" 2016