Death is real, but many of us live as if it cannot happen to us or to those whom we love. Part of our task is to feel its reality and learn from the loss that is most encompassing, the loss of life.
In the Jewish burial ceremony, the family is urged to shovel dirt on the coffin of the deceased. The thud of dirt on the coffin is blunt, even brutal. It jolts the heart. Hearing it impresses upon those who survive that this is real. Someone is being placed in the ground and will not return. > . .
The beginning of renewed life is to absorb the reality of death.
— David J. Wolpe, Making Loss Matter