I have sent good thoughts to both of you. Now I seek some better words which may be helpful. Miracles do happen every single day; one of them is to have a good death. I once was privileged to help a friend's mother to do just that. It is one of the high points of my life. It was to sit with her at 3 am when she was "scared of dying! Wouldn't you be?" and I was gifted with words which did not come from me but, rather, through me. As she held both my hands as tightly as she was able - I could not leave her alone, nor would I - I spoke words to her which eased her fear and enabled her to die peacefully a day later. She moved from fear and anger to peace as I was open to allow words to flow from the spirit which dwells within each of us and connects us one to another. And the peace in which she lived her last day of life was a gift to her son and his family. "God" is not a word I generally use but the bottom line that night was an encouragement to "let go and let God". It suited her.

A Quaker friend who died some years ago wrote in 1988: "I saw that death,too, is another great divide... When we walk in faith, holding the hand of God, through these ominous shadows before us, a great and beautiful light beyond our present knowing awaits us."

But for those who are left behind, another Friend wrote: "I think now that I am ready to lay down (the pain of loss), to start getting used to the transition this child has made, to prepare myself for the adventure of knowing him in his new state of being."

For William Penn wrote in 1693:
Those who love beyond the World, cannot be separated by it.
Death cannot kill that which never dies.
Nor can Spirits ever be divided
that love and live in the same Divine Principle,
the Root and Record of their Friendship.
If Absence be not Death, neither is theirs.

Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the seas;
they live in one another still.
....

***

Your friends shall surely live on in the lives of those she has touched. She will be with you always, a gift you will carry in your heart as you work through the pain of loss and beyond.

Peace be with you both at this important time in your lives.