What the dead have to teach

Death is real; he is not coming back.  He won't be here again even if I really need him.  His body is gone, gone, gone; his hand will not use that handkerchief, or fix that remote.  I don't really believe how final this is.  I'm holding on to little things (some gross like his blood stained handkerchiefs) because I can't quite grasp this death thing.  It makes me aware of how, though we think we know with the front part of our brains, things like birth (there's two people and then, there's three, where the hell did that person come from!?!) and death (the magical thinking that somehow he's just gone away for a while and then we'll get a chance at a do over and he'll still be able to play billiards and fix the TV remote when it gets moody with me),    my body is going to take a looong time to realize it.

I wonder a little more about is there still a specific Gil in the hereafter, though I feel even more strongly that it is irrelevant to us on this side of the divide. What ever it is,   it's not for our knowing.  There may be     all sorts of possibilities, but where I am is here, now, with my life to be responsible for living.  All I can hold on to is the way Gil changed me and the way I live in this body now.   I'm still swimming in denial but I can feel the shore of acceptance in the distance.
Here's a poem (slightly edited by me) which seemed to speak to this.

Letting Go of What Cannot be Held Back by Bill Holm Let go of the dead now. Let them fall, sink, go away, become invisible as they tried so hard to do in their own dying. We needed to bother them with what we called help. We were the needy ones. The dying do their own work with tidiness, just the right speed, sometimes even a little satisfaction. So quiet down. Let them go. Practice your own song. Now.