Hi Starting Over,
I'm so sorry for the recent loss of both of your parents. It's a horrid thing to lose one parent, but to lose both close together, oh my. Words seem so inadequate. You have my sympathy and empathy. My dad died in 2002, mom is still with us. Since my dad died, I dream about him several times a month, and random thoughts about him will pop into my head just about every day when I least expect it. In a way, these "occurrences" since his death are a form of prayer, because I am thinking about him.
You said "When I read on those boards, no one ever says something like "My thoughts are with you", it always has to include prayer somewhere." That's true! That is what people say. But what are prayers - they are only thoughts, aren't they? Perhaps, we're directing them "somewhere" - to God, to the Universe, to the Spirit World, or to the energy vortex or to whatever else is out there that is responsible for somehow maintaining the order of the universe in the face of entropy and chaos. Or perhaps we're all "gods" in our own way, and we're directing those loving thoughts and memories outward where somewhere, somehow, they may do something, have some positive effect. I'm no philosopher (as you can no doubt tell, lol) but honestly, I don't think offering "thoughts" and/or "prayers" for someone that we know or that we don't really know but who has asked for and therefore needs those thoughts/prayers, can hurt. And it may help - in the end, do we really know? I sure don't! So maybe you could consider it as hedging one's bets... And it's something that an otherwise helpless person can do in the face of events over which we have no control. This isn't a very good analogy, but remember right after 9/11, hundreds of thousands of people lined up to donate blood because, they said, "they wanted to help." And that was a way to help. Most of that blood wasn't used, but that doesn't negate the selfless acts of those hundreds of thousands of people.
