A closed casket doesn't mean a closed life.

Amanda stood before her mother’s casket, saying goodbye to her only friend. In that moment, she thought her own life had shuttered.

People say life is for the brave and courageous. The next day, she buried her mother. Everyone expected her to break down, twisted, Amanda already understood the meaning of death.

We often hear that death is a scary thing. But is it death we fear, or what comes after it? That’s what Amanda asked herself.

Her life didn’t begin only at birth. It began again when she paid her final respects to her beloved mother, a moment where grief wears many masks.

This is a reality for many of us. Too many expected Amanda’s life to fall apart. With no one left in her family who truly listened to her, every word she spoke was met with pity. If she checked up on someone, they assumed she needed help.

So she isolated herself. She did everything on her own.

Amanda planted herself like a seed, whispering promises. She focused on healing her broken heart and learning to live with the fact that her mother was gone.

She continued with university and graduated cum laude, something many never thought she could do. Promises can be kept. She became so successful that shame fell on the family who had ignored her.

It is true that strangers can become the most loving, caring, and understanding family. That became Amanda’s life - building life with loving strangers - after she accepted life after death.

Truth be told, the strength to be hopeful is far greater than the weakness of being helpless.

And this is what she said to herself:

When chapters are closed, new books are revealed. Streams of new storylines germinate, like a seed that's been planted for much too long, finally breaking ground.

When chapters are closed, sometimes it is painful. Sometimes, it is blissful. The choice of what to do with it is left within us.

When chapters are closed, new beginnings have just begun.

It’s a new life after the last end.

May we all find the strength to learn to live with the loss of our loved ones.

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