Suppose you have lost a loved one. You think they have simply ceased to exist. You are blind to the fact that they are undergoing dramatic changes of form, that they are already involved in a new manifestation. Things are happening very quickly — except in you. You are stuck, imprisoned in one fixed image of this beloved manifestation. . . .

For four years after her death, I felt like an orphan. Then she [mother] came to me one night in a dream. From that time on, I ceased to feel her death as a loss. I realized that she had never died, and that my sorrow was founded on sheer illusion.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Thich Nhat Hanh by Jean-Pierre Cartier, Rachel Cartier