Being Grateful During the Holiday?? The Passing of a Friend.

I did say I like Christmas better than Thanksgiving.

Although, an ambiguous time; in the back of my mind my thoughts are not far away from dear friends on the other coast, sitting and waiting by the side of a loved one in Hospice on Christmas Eve. How does someone celebrate when one is dying?

He had so much energy and a desire to live; but it was not so.
I hear he has passed peacefully, in the late morning of  December 27, 2010. My far away friend whom I can still see, fresh in my mind, has been taken away.

Jack Costello was an outstanding leader, both in the military and the civilian world. He had more energy than younger men under his leadership. Through his relentless drive to excel, he neglected that one pain in his pancreas.
Why is it that something so dark comes swiftly through one's productive life and takes them away for no given reason?

People are told to be grateful to God; even after He has taken away their loved ones too soon. They must think that God is like a baker who has taken away all their bread and throws a few crumbs back; expecting gratitude, for not taking the whole loaf. Some people are just grateful to God that they once owned a whole loaf.

I don't believe God wants gratitude from the living for what He takes away and leaves behind.
He wants us to have greater understanding and knowledge because the physical pain of the one dying becomes the mental pain for the one living. Isn't that what Jesus Christ did for mankind?

Today most religious people who believe Jesus died for them; have that mental pain called "guilt."
Unfortunately, what mankind learned about sin, was "confession." And they are good to go for another day of sinning. I don't think God had that kind of learning in mind; but, don't ask me.  I am already walking on thin ice, according to some of my friends.

From what little living, suffering, I have witnessed; it only makes me stronger with each passing day, to shout back at God. After all, he did give me a brain and He knows I will challenge Him; even in my ignorance; because I am using the ignorance he gave me, based on a religious faith, that is not a certainty, among the living. It is only a certainty among the dead. 

My friend must know the Truth of his Faith by now. He has gone on, to the Light: and we, the living are still in the Dark.