wrong button

I love your description of this "transition" we're all headed for.  Somehow people believe this existence is the best "life" has to offer.  But that's a pretty simplistic notion.  And one day we'll "find out" when we get to the "other side."

We feel sad and miss someone, of course, but then they become a part of us somehow.

A stanza from a sentimental poem by George Cooper I'd once mistaken as James Fenimore Cooper's:

Brave your storms

with firm endeavor

let your vain repinings go

hopeful hearts

will find forever

roses beneath the snow.

Or:

11After he had said this, he went on to tell them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up."

 12His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

 14So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him."

 16Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him."

 21"Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."

 23Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."

 24Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."

 25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

 27"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ,[b] the Son of God, who was to come into the world."

 28And after she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. "The Teacher is here," she said, "and is asking for you." 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

 32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34"Where have you laid him?" he asked.
      "Come and see, Lord," they replied.

 35Jesus wept.

 36Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!"

 37But some of them said, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?"

 40Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?"

 41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me."

 43When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"

44The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.
      Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."