…

I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a former British colony, when Sir Winston Churchill died of a stroke.

I had attended Bourne, a British Army School. Survived the life-altering 11+ Exam.

In some ways, I guess, I’m about half British myself.

I remember the shock and sadness when Churchill died. He had always believed his life was destined for the very moments his nation needed him most.

Someone said his death had left a great emptiness in the nation that was never to be filled.

No nation does pomp and mourning better than Great Britain.

I remember the shock and grief when John Kennedy was assassinated. I was quite young but I wondered if America would ever be the same having lost someone we could not replace no matter what our constitution said. His loss was so sudden, he and his family so young.

I realized that America had weathered terrible loss before. I had seen newsreel footage of tens of thousands of Americans, many dressed in suits and their “Sunday best” to pay respect as Franklin Roosevelt’s coffin made it’s way to the Capitol. You could see the concern and confusion on these ordinary faces; we were a country still at war upon his death.

We lost our greatest President, our moral compass, 160 years ago today.

I have read that millions lined the 1700-mile route to view the funeral train carrying Abraham Lincoln’s casket from New York to Springfield, Illinois. Most believe that he alone had the humility and wisdom to lead us through our Civil War and many have wondered if his death limited the Reconstruction of the South he hoped America would embrace.

Again, an irreplaceable life.

But then I realized that my father’s life, and my mother’s life, were irreplaceable to me.

That each of us has to experience losing someone we have no experience living without, not knowing how we will make it through each day as we wake.

It is something we share with every other person on this earth.

In the end, we are not so different from each other, despite language and circumstance.

We have to endure the rest of our lives with an emptiness which is never to be filled.

Yet, we do.

Somehow, we rise from our knees, from the depth of our grief, and take that first step forward. And then the one after that…

Nikki Giovanni wrote, “Crying is a skill.” Tears express what words cannot.

We surely wish there was a less necessary skill, a less painful way, than this human life.

Don’t we?