I look at her hair and see her china-doll features and I wonder how she used to run in life.
I see her face in my dreams, everywhere I turn and her face is real to me, as real as death.
I used to think death to be an illusion, a pale shadow cast by our fear, but now that shadow has deepened to inky black outlining the frail features of life.
I used to think that life was precious, could be improved beyond suffering, but I was wrong. She shows me the way to understand the pitiful understanding I have of my own wants and desires for myself, my own petty ambitions. They are all crumbling now, speared by destiny, the freedom that awaits us in the shadowed mystery of life that begins in death.
I have always known suffering, except perhaps for the purity of those earlier years when suffering was another form of gratitude, a cause for immediate joy when it ended.
I remember feeling pitifully grateful when something as simple as indigestive cramps went away. Now I am thankful for tears. They are the only gift I found suitable to give when I saw her...in that moment.
When death had lifted her wooded veil. When the coffin opened and I saw in her what awaits us all.
Her china-doll features wink and she waves. She shows me the way to Light through shadow. The veil has lifted and I see that I am not alone.
A testament to the death of ‘Isabel’ Sunshine Rose
by Moishe Chaim Ben-shir
12/24/2005
