Recently I learned a friend of mine passed away. Patricia and I met around two or so years ago through mutual friends who were also fans of Dan Fogelberg. Initially, what started out as a friendship based on a shared interested, being fans of Dan Fogelberg, became a multi-hued friendship based on similar life experiences, a passion for literature, a love of Lord Byron and many, many other things. Over time, I looked forward to the conversations and correspondence we shared.

Around the same time I learned of Patricia’s passing I was also told of an old high school friend’s passing and also the legend that was Dick Clark. I am heart broken. All three of these people were lovely, intelligent, engaging people.

I started to think about each of them and the unique gifts and talents they possessed, the lives they had touched and how they will be mourned and missed by all who knew them for some time to come.

In particular, Patricia was on my mind. I thought of the phone conversations we had when I had first moved here to California and felt so alone and frightened. She was very kind and encouraging as I tried to adjust to my new life here and many times we found ourselves lost in conversation on one of our many shared interests which much of the time was either Dan Fogelberg or Lord Byron.

Patricia had been an English teacher whose passion was literature and so it was fun and only natural to have conversations regarding theme and interpretation with her. She thought beyond the apparent surface story and easily rooted out the far more complex subtleties present in the poem or story at hand. I often times marveled at her depth and wished I shared her level of intellect.

Remembering her and her incredible talents and gifts made me wonder as I often have when someone I love and/or admire passes away, what happens to all the talent we have honed, all the knowledge we have gained and all the love we have shared when we pass away? Does it end when we travel on to the next level? Do we carry it with us? Is it disbersed into the ethers for someone else to acquire?

There are some who believe we ascend to Heaven to join with our loved ones and the source of our creation. They believe we are simply returning home after (successfully) completing our challenge of free will.

Many people believe when we die, that is the end not only of us, but everything we have been, learned, honed, and so on. To me this makes little to no sense. How does one explain the genius that was Mozart, composing whole symphonies at the age of three?

My personal belief (reincarnation) suggests that we carry it and all our memories with us to the other side. Once we are there, we review the lessons we have learned, the lives we touched and we determine the progress, if any, we have made on our ultimate journey to be one with the creator. After this debriefing of sorts, we plan our next venture on this plane; the challenges we wish to be presented, the lessons we wish to learn and of course the karma to be balanced so that we may continue inching onward to our ultimate goal. Of course we bring with us all the lessons we have learned previously, skills and knowledge we have acquired and so on, but for the sake of our soul’s realization, this information is veiled from us as we begin anew our journey here on earth. And though our gifts and talents are veiled…they are there and once discovered in this life can be accessed and used to face the challenges newly presented to us.

I hope future me has the privilege of meeting future Patricia. Though the time I shared with her on this plane and in this incarnation was short, it is cherished and will always be remembered as will Joe and Dick Clark and all those I’ve known of, known and loved along life’s path. I cherish the memories of them and the lessons I learned with and through them and am ever grateful that they took the time they did with me before they rejoined the River of Souls.

That’s all for this time. Until next time, stay safe and be happy.