{"id":3123,"date":"2013-05-27T17:31:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T23:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=3123"},"modified":"2013-05-27T17:37:28","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T23:37:28","slug":"loved-by-all-who-knew-himher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/loved-by-all-who-knew-himher\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLoved By All Who Knew Him\/Her\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past several years there have been many of us who have dealt with tragedy and loss: with everything from illness, to injuries, to the loss of loved ones. Some have shared their losses openly with those around us, such as I did with the death of my best friend Steve Gasser a few years ago; some have shared their stories of loss with their friends and their coworkers; and some have kept their situations private and coped with it on their own.\u00a0 Regardless of how we have dealt with it, most all of us have had to go through the loss of loved ones and dealt with tragedy in our life, and with the Memorial Day holiday it certainly brings those losses to the front of our minds with great soberness.<\/p>\n

As we visited two cemeteries today to deliver flowers to the graves of lost loved ones, I couldn\u2019t help but be amazed at the number of people there paying their respects to the ones they have lost.\u00a0 You could see that each of them dearly missed the person who was laid to rest there.\u00a0 And even though I didn\u2019t recognize the faces of the people standing at the gravesides of their lost loved ones, it felt as though we were already bonded to one another by the sheer fact that each of us shared the feelings of loss, and each of us understood the heartfelt emotions of the other as if we had been lifelong friends.\u00a0 As we stood in that cemetery we were a community.<\/p>\n

I am grateful for the Memorial Day holiday.\u00a0 I am grateful that there has been a day set aside to remind us to focus on those we have lost.\u00a0 But today I was most grateful for the reminder of the importance of a community \u2013 it was a reminder that we should all reach out to those around us who may be struggling with loss or hard times in their lives.\u00a0 We are a community that has the ability to support one another, to comfort one another, to lift one another up and help each other on our way.\u00a0 We have the ability to truly touch one another\u2019s lives for the better here.\u00a0 We should never let that opportunity pass us by.\u00a0 We should remember to look out for one another.\u00a0 We should be caring citizens in our communities that we are blessed to be a part of.<\/p>\n

When my friend Steve died, I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that people showed to me.\u00a0 The kind words, the poems, the smiles, the hugs, and people\u2019s willingness to let me write about my feelings each day and the comments of support that followed from so many.\u00a0 I cannot even describe how much that support meant to me at that time in my life.\u00a0 I had never dealt with any kind of loss at that level before and I can honestly say that the people that supported me made a huge impact in my ability to go forward and to stay strong at a time I wanted to curl up in a ball and give up.\u00a0 A community of great people did that for me in my life.\u00a0 So I know the power that exists amongst the people in our communities at work or in our neighborhoods or in our religious groups.\u00a0 There is power when a community bands together to watch out for each other.\u00a0 It is something we all need to remember to do for each other.<\/p>\n

All of us can impact one another\u2019s lives for the better.\u00a0 All of us can leave a legacy of love to everyone who ever steps into our community.\u00a0 That community should include everyone from neighbors, to coworkers, to clients, to vendors, and anyone else our paths cross throughout our day.\u00a0 Let\u2019s all commit to be there to support one another as best we can through loving words, smiles, encouragement, nice hand written notes, small gestures, whatever we can do to help each other get through the hard times in our lives.<\/p>\n

When our own lives pass I hope that every one of us will have lived up to having the phrase \u201cLoved By All Who Knew Him\/Her\u201d<\/span> <\/strong>engraved on our place of rest.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a><\/p>\n

~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past several years there have been many of us who have dealt with tragedy and loss: with everything from illness, to injuries, to the loss of loved ones. Some have shared their losses openly with those around us, such as I did with the death of my best friend Steve Gasser a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[453,1116,550,63,1114,1115,1104,1118,1117,563,1121,714,1105,244,65,451,144,454,897,1107,1110,1109,1111,35,1013,1108,596,1090,32,1119,1120,1113,1123,1122,145,81,31,1112,345,116],"class_list":["post-3123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-act-of-service","tag-assist","tag-blessed","tag-blessings","tag-bond","tag-bonded","tag-cemetary","tag-church","tag-citizens","tag-community","tag-coping-with-loss","tag-emotion","tag-flowers","tag-grateful","tag-gratitude","tag-heart","tag-help","tag-hug","tag-illness","tag-in-memory-of","tag-injury","tag-loss","tag-loss-of-loved-one","tag-love","tag-loved","tag-loved-one","tag-loved-ones","tag-memorial-day","tag-memory","tag-neighbor","tag-neighborhood","tag-pay-respect","tag-place-of-rest","tag-remember","tag-service","tag-smile","tag-steve-gasser","tag-steven-dale-gasser","tag-support","tag-tragedy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3123"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3138,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3123\/revisions\/3138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}