The presence of death makes us humble; life is enhanced and regarded as a gift. However, the death of a loved one or the simple recognition of human frailty may lead to despair and doubt.

We have to understand the special needs of both the dying and the bereaved. The dying mourn their own deaths as they anticipate the completion of their lives. The bereaved mourn the deaths of their loved ones. The natural process of grieving to express loss can be encouraged along to its completion in both cases. Expression of such emotion is a healthy reaction, testifying to life's significance.

And this is the Comfort of the Good, that the Grave cannot hold them, and that they live as soon as they die. For Death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die. They that love beyond the World, cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what 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. --William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693

Death often faces us with the most difficult of questions, yet it may be the occasion of our most profound insights into the meanings of life. As we try to surround the bereaved with love and care, God's sustaining power can bring to all concerned not only courage but a transforming Truth about death and life itself. Although life instinctively avoids death, death is not the opposite of life. It is essential to the ongoing, changing nature of life.

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