How Death is a reaffirmation of LIFE to the LIVING!

Photos by Susan Ross

My friend's brother was... "put to rest"... this past week. When I spoke with her yesterday, she said everything went well and they were especially comforted by the large number of people who had "shown up" from so many different places in the United States and elsewhere to attend her brother's funeral in Atlanta.

That's when I said something that surprised us both, as it seemed such a revelation: "A person's funeral is a clear demonstration to the living of how that person used his time on earth. It's a reaffirmation of LIFE!"

She then told me that they were so surprised and pleased that the attorney general of the United States, ***Eric Holder, and his wife had flown from D.C. to Atlanta for the funeral of Jake (Jacob Robert) Henderson because he'd known Dr. Sharon Malone-Holder, the attorney general's wife, since their law school days at Columbia University School of Law. Georgia Congressman John Lewis, former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and other well-known personalities in Atlanta also attended Jake's funeral.
Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin, with Jake and his wife, Solange.

I expressed surprise that Jake was an attorney, stating that "he was so much more."

We laughed when we thought of Jake being ONLY an attorney.

"He was so much more, wasn't he?" I asked my friend.

The thing that we often don't realize is that we can choose in this one lifetime to play only the role we've chosen as a career: we can choose to be only an attorney, a doctor, a teacher, a sales executive, a life insurance agent et al and only that. Or, like Jake Henderson of Atlanta, we can choose to be so much more...by making the world, our home, and the world of people, our family!


The fact that even though I've known my friend, Shirley Henderson Coleman, (see "Beautiful People" profile this blog: Sept. 5, 2009) so many years and had never once thought of her brother as an "attorney type" speaks to his ability to transcend a SINGULAR role in life.

I asked her, "Can you imagine if he'd chosen to box himself and ALL that he was into ONE SPACE?"

Yes, many people from disparate backgrounds and places had shown up for Jake, because he had chosen to let his Spirit and his Soul expand to its fullest capacity while yet he lived!


We're here on earth for the evolution of our Soul!

We can choose to box it into one aspect of ourselves because we become too scared to live. We become scared to explore and experience the fullness of life and all its concomitant challenges.
Jake pictured with Congressman John Lewis and Former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

We can be sure that Jake Henderson lived life to the fullest capacity that he was given and able. He embraced it with fervor at each stage, so no matter WHEN people met that Spirit that was Jake Henderson, they wanted to stay close.

"You couldn't know Jake without loving Jake."

- Dr. Carole Henderson Tyson, Jake's sister

I asked my friend if it were just "attorney types" who had shown up for Jake.

She said, "Of course NOT!"

I would have been disappointed if I'd heard "yes."



My friend, Shirley, explained to me that "people from his childhood showed up...from when he was a little boy...people whom he'd met in the Travel Industry, in his International business, people of all types and from different times and aspects of his life. That's what comforted us."



Yes, isn't it so true that the absence of the Spirit that LIVED is so much easier to bear when many people from many places with so many different faces...black, white, African, Asian, Cuban, European et al...would show up and express grief at the absence of that Spirit/Soul?!!

That's when we know the cessation of the life that the Spirit represented is a testimony to the ESSENCE of LIFE, i.e. what it is ALL about! We cannot live our lives boxed into a role or a state of "BEINGNESS!"Doing so stifles our Soul and limits our potential!

We need to live while we yet still have life and allow ourselves the fullest expansion of our Soul while it yet remains in the body that we know to be us.


Ten years from now, if you have not added one or two people to the list of people you call friends, you should know that you're not evolving. We must continue to evolve, and if we can't look back and see that evolution, then we're "stuck in a rut!"

Don't live in the past! Don't dwell in the past! Don't dwell on failures! Indeed, if you, as some do, think you have had NO failures in life, then you truly have not lived!

You should be attracting new people into your life as you move along life's pathway...touching more Souls...having new experiences that now make up your LIFE!

At the end of your time here on earth, the people who show up for you...whether in volume or in diversity and quality, i.e. people from your childhood and those you met just months before your death, will be a testimony to the life you've lived!


(UPI Photos of AG)

It's all about touching SOULS and getting people like the attorney general of the United States to clear his calendar and be a silent witness to your BEAUTIFUL SOUL!


It's about getting your childhood friend to weep and grieve for the memory of the little boy or girl, he or she will no longer know and be able to "play with."
Jake, pictured with his wife of 14 years, Cuban-Born Solange!

It's about your wife or husband, your kids, your sisters and brothers truly feeling the absence of that wonderful SOUL...as it makes its journey home.

My heartfelt condolences to my friend, Shirley, and her entire family. "R.I.P" Jake Henderson!
Jacob Robert (Jake) Henderson!

You've left such lasting and beautiful memories on EARTH!

Namaste',

Che'

***For full obituaries on Jake Henderson, cut/paste these links:
Atlanta Journal Constitution--http://www.ajc.com/news/jacob-robert-henderson-jr-337345.html
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-obituaries-2500.html
NewsMakers Live: http://www.newsmakerslive.com/411.html
http://www.thedefendersonline.com/2010/03/05/attorney-general-eric-holder-bids-jake-henderson-farewell/