Life Well Lived: What Does It Mean?

"The bus is loading up." At least, that's what my soul sister Judith Rich and I call it when death is in the air, and our friends are traveling into realms beyond where our progressive lens can see, or our monkey minds can fathom. Funny, or not so funny, how death seems to come in clusters. What's that old adage about the Big D coming to gather in threes? And, when it does arrive at our door, let us hope that it does so only when we have cultivated a well-lived life.

Having attended and delivered far too many memorial services over the past year, there has been more than ample opportunity to notice whose life seems to have been best lived, and whose remained anemic. For one thing, have you ever noticed that when the speaker is marching through the litany of achievements and honors of the deceased's résum@eacute;, the room "flatlines," faces going pale? But the nanosecond mention is made of what the "graduate" loved, the room comes alive. It's as if the heat's been turned up a notch, and waves of animation move through the crowd. People become animated, some finding the freedom to smile or chuckle.

More...