Death of a Loved one...

"One day your life will flash before you, make sure it is worth watching" -unknown

Gosh, this one is hard. When someone you know passes away, especially prematurely and unexpected, there are few words to describe all the many feelings running throughout your body.

There are no words.

So many notes, cards, books, poems all offered with genuine yet hopeless chagrin: "There are no words..." Still we seek to find them. In many ways we are recrafted by each death - how we reflect on the memories, how we plan the future, how we redefine all that we thought we knew.

Death. Sometimes it comes creeping in through the pores of our knowing like the sun steadily warming in the middle of a glorious day - nothing to take particular note of until afterwards when tender, red shoulders let you know that you've been burned. Aunt Pat's death was like this. Lung Cancer. It creeps and mutates, a monster within, churning until it overtakes the vessel it inhabited. There is time to say goodbye, time to make plans, time to cherish, time to make peace, time to make ammends. Don't take me wrong - it doesn't make it any easier to deal with such a death, but perhaps "time" is a tender mercy from the Lord. The Lord gives tender mercies in different ways. With Great-Grandma, I believe the tender mercy was taking her back to her heavenly home when she could pass away in the place she called her earthly home. I also believe she was called at a precise time when Grandma Hasse was not there and did not have to relive the events surrounding her death - leaving her only with the joyous memories of living.

Brian's cousin Dani passed away on Monday evening of a brain aneurysm. She was only 50 years old. Taken so suddenly and without warning. A wife, a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a friend in life, an angel now in death. There was no "time" given at all.

Life isn't fair. Where is God in that one? The tender mercy? Is there even a God? If so, why would He let this happen? Doesn't He know that she is needed here, on earth, that her work here is not done?

There are no explanations. The only thing we have to hold onto is faith. Without faith, we might as well just lay down and die right along side her. For every tragedy there is a miracle on the horizon. We can either focus on the tragedy or remember the life of the loved one with hope, happiness, and the willingness to wake up the next day - always seeking for a glimpse at the miracles happening around us. So I choose even when doubt creeps in, to still live my life full of faith. It is with faith that I believe we will be reunited with our loved ones again.

All of us will die. We know that. No matter how much we may get caught in in the daily tasks, and trivial things of this world while we are here, there comes a time in life which we contemplate death and what comes next. I am grateful for a faith that teaches me not only the purpose of life and where I came from but what will happen to me after I die. I will continue to live.

Death is not the end. It is only a doorway through which we must pass. It is one step in the eternal scheme of things. A piece of the puzzle that must be placed precisely in the spot created just for us. God knows us and has plans for us larger than we can even comprehend. It was Dani's time, for God has a calling for her that is more bountiful than even the calling we thought she had here on earth. There is so much more to do when we get to the other side. We continue our journey, and are reunited with those who passed before us.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow,

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain,

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am in the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there. I do not die.

-unknown

We can be together forever someday...