I’m not in Minnesota.
My Mom and stepfather have traveled to MN with my great-aunt Joan, someone so close to my family that I’ve always called her my own aunt. I realized that in this situation, it’s much more important that my grandma have time with her sister and daughter than with me, especially if she’s still in intensive care with limited access to guests. Tomorrow may be a different story; tomorrow I may drive up there with my Michigan sister who hasn’t had a chance to say goodbye.
I spent today looking for audiobooks for the expected ride with my mom; a trip to the thrift store for black pants suitable for a funeral (since I’ve lost enough weight to size myself out of my current wardrobe of acceptable funeral clothing), and a nap for an exhausted granddaughter and her husband who does too much for his church.
I woke up at six p.m. to grey half-light and a loud patter of rain on the roof. My husband still slept. I thought about how my grandmother mothered me when my own family fell apart. I thought about the other mothers that have come through my life, and how they have left. I have been truly blessed by a long series of wonderful, strong, beautiful women who have done great things through extraordinary odds. And for many of them, I never told them how much they meant to me while they were still able to hear it.
I dreamed the other day that I saw my Grandpa, Gramma’s husband, and that I held his hand. I told him I loved him. Whether there’s an entity that heard my heart or not, I felt a sense of closure. I didn’t get a chance to say that to him during his long struggle with emphysema. But even if there’s no soul of my Grampa to hear it, the closure is in my mind.
I also was painfully aware of every breath that Gramma is taking right now. What does she feel? Is she out of pain’s reach? Does she see anything like the light at the end of a tunnel? Will she see her beloved husband after all these years, and will they know each other?
Christianity offers hope of an afterlife where we will all be together. I do believe in heaven. I also believe in a hell where people who have no interest in God will be separated from him – by their own wishes. I can honestly say that I don’t entirely understand the mechanism by which this will happen, or what we can expect after we die. As I said in bible study the other night, I can’t say that ONLY someone who accepts Christ as their savior is guaranteed a place in heaven. I don’t understand how God could reject all the people who have never heard about or who don’t understand him. All I can tell someone is, here’s what I believe for my own personal salvation. I can’t speak about any other spiritual things. How can I understand the spiritual world? I don’t even fully understand the physical world.
And I don’t want to limit God. How could I possibly know what he’s doing in the spiritual world? He can do what he wants with the people he’s created.
Yet, I have my own hopes. I hope that I will recognize my loved ones in heaven. I hope that they will be connected to the people of their long-held desires. I have to admit, selfishly, that there are a few people I don’t have to run across in eternity, but that’s pettiness. More than that, I hope everyone, after a long, hard journey through a sinful world, can find peace, rest, and joy when they die, even more than the peace, rest and joy they may have found on earth.
And again, selfishly, I wish that Gramma’s physical suffering was done.
Published by angelawd on April 11th, 2008 tagged Daily Christianity, Healing, Joyful living
April 11th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Heavy stuff, and beautifully written. I hope the journey is peaceful for all of you.
April 11th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that this wonderfuly kind and loving God who put us here and allowed us to bond and love so strongly would not just, POOF!, make it all disappear when we reach his doorstep.
I KNOW - absolutely and beyond any doubt - that my loved ones are still around me. I KNOW that I feel them, smell them, hear their words in my heart when I’m lost and their joyous laughter in my celebrations.
I KNOW that they are together and know each other; and I KNOW that even those with whom they disagreed in life are there and loved because to be in God’s presence is to find the perfect peace, understanding, and knowledge beyond all earthly pettiness.
And when it is my time to go home, I KNOW that they will be there waiting for me with arms wide and I will be enfolded in a love that is beyond all imagining.
THAT is what my faith is to me. It is the peace, comfort, and hope in which I to walk every day. It is the life preserve that I cling to when I feel that I’m drowning in a world of pain, turmoil, and uncertainty. It is the hand I reach for in the dark, the sunlight that shines through the storms that this human existence spawns. My faith is the air I breathe, the water I drink, and the pillow on which I lay my head each night knowing that no matter where I wake up in the morning, I AM LOVED.
April 12th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Yes you are loved, Damama. Thank you so much for the beautifully-expressed belief in your faith. I will keep this with me this week.
@Pamela, thank you for your wishes. I also am wishing peace on everyone.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Angela, I think about these things often…it’s a little elementary, but I like to think there’s a little stopping point right at the gates and we can have that last chance to accept Jesus. I can’t fathom there is nothing for those who, as you said, don’t know Him OR don’t understand Him.
April 14th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Stacey, I never thought of it that way. What a wonderful idea! I’ll have to think on that some more. After all, we just don’t know much about the spiritual world at all.