It's odd, isn't it, when you hear that someone has died. There's a moment of disbelief, and in that same moment, an almost-impulse to run to that person, to get in the car or whatever it is and get to them, as if you were there, somehow they wouldn't be dead. As if there would be something you could do.

I don't usually combine my beer blogging with thoughts of passing to the great beyond. We got word tonight that one of our mutual, almost life-long friends, had passed. We knew she was ill and had been for some time. Shelley kept in touch with her, as much as anyone keeps in touch with anyone when you live a couple of hours away from one another and don't travel in the same circles any longer. It still was quite a shock. And this was someone who touched the lives of almost all of our friends and many of our family. So it was a lot of calls back and forth -- "Have you heard anything?" "How could we just be finding out now?" "Was she at home? At work? Who found her?" It's a natural human response to try to figure out and make sense of what we inherently can not understand. We question. We want to know how, and when, and who was there, and what happened.

What we do know is, is it happens all the time. Sometimes you sort of know, like with my mom, we sort of knew. She had been sick on and off for years, and she had been on a downward spiral for quite a while.  She had had a "widow maker" heart attack, survived that, was diagnosed a few years later with breast cancer, survived that, but the chemotherapy used to treat her cancer proved too cardiotoxic for her already failing heart and organs. To put it simply. So we knew it was coming. But it was the same. When she passed, there was that impulse that there should have been something we could do. But there wasn't.

And there isn't. Right? So what I think is worth exploring is, what are we doing here? What's the point of it all, not to be too precious or faux profound? We grow up (if we're lucky) and slog around for however long we get, we work, we have relationships, we live our lives. There are no points given for getting married or not, for having a great job or not, there's no prize or party or extra years given and, I think what is a tacit surprise for folks our age, there's no sense of completion. There's no, "okay, you've had a good family and a good job for 40 years, you've contributed to the joy of your fellow man, and now, you can be done". There's nothing except the knowledge that the years before you are more than likely fewer than the years behind you. So what's it all about, Alfie? ("Alfie" should always come after "What's it all about?". If you don't know why, ask your mom.)

For years, I've been reading books and listening to recordings from Abraham. Abraham is a non-physical entity channeled by a woman named Esther Hicks. Abraham, being non-physical (he says there is no death) has some thoughts on the subject that, for whatever reason, ring true for me.

"You never get it wrong, because you never get it done."  It's comforting, right? What this means to me is, there's no point in beating yourself up about all the things that didn't go the way you planned, because as long as you get up the next morning, you're not done.

And -- to me, this is a good one -- "The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff -- it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel."

The. Amount. Of. Joy. That. You. Feel.   So -- here's to joy. I'm lucky. I found a family and a career path and a life that make it easy, most of the time, to find joy. But every time someone in my life makes the transition from this existence to the next, it's a reminder to me that there's no point in doing anything in life unless it's fun. Unless joy is the result in some way. Finding what's wrong in every situation may be easier than finding what's right, but what's right is always there. And, especially in times like these when it's so easy to find things to be unhappy about, I think our friend Trish would suggest: 

Look for the silver lining
Whenever a cloud appears in the blue
Remember, somewhere the sun is shining
And so the right thing to do is make it shine for you

A heart full of joy and gladness
Will always banish sadness and strife
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life

A heart full of joy and gladness
Will always banish sadness and strife
So always look for the silver lining
And try to find the sunny side of life

Oh - and I drank a COLLECTIVE ARTS LIFE IN THE CLOUDS India Pale Ale with Mosaic and Simcoe hops while I wrote this.