How to Respect the Dead — Without Breaking Yourself

In the past two weeks, I received messages from two women — both devastated by the recent deaths of loved ones.

One lost her father.
He had called her before passing. She missed the call.
And now she lives in a pit of guilt.

“If I had picked up,” she asked, “would he still be alive?”

Her grief spiraled into depression. She began weeping at work, sometimes running off to cry at her father’s grave. At one point, she even hinted at suicidal thoughts.

When she finally found me, I could feel the heaviness in her energy. Her words were soaked in sorrow, replaying the day of his death over and over.

But the answer was already written.

In my vision, when her father called her, the “Yin Cha” — the underworld messengers who escort souls — were already waiting nearby. His departure was fated. There was no stopping it.

When I told her this, she burst into tears.
“You’ve saved me,” she said.
“If I hadn’t heard this, I might have spent my whole life buried in regret.”

A few days later, a young widow contacted me. Her husband had just passed.
She only had one question:
“Is he doing okay in the afterlife?”

The answer?
Not really. But I couldn’t say that.
So I simply told her, “Don’t interfere with the world of the dead. Less crying, more offerings. That’s how you show love now.”

💭 It’s harsh, but true:
The living and the dead now exist in two separate dimensions.

The pain of losing someone — especially with unresolved feelings — can tear a person apart.
But lingering sorrow doesn’t help the one who’s gone.
In fact, strong emotions can disturb their journey.

What can help?
Send them offerings. In traditional belief, money — even in the underworld — still holds power.
(Though I’m not sure if ghost money works cross-border — say, from France to China — but gold should be universal.)

In Taoism, honoring the dead means respecting their path forward.
Grief is natural.
But peace comes when you release what can no longer be changed.

By Wuyu