Whenever I attend a viewing or a funeral it always causes me to reflect on my own thoughts and experiences with losing a loved one. My mother, along with my sister, Annette were the most difficult experiences of losing a loved one that I’ve gone through.
I knew that Mother had been give a limited time to live but I was reluctant to accept this. When the doctors told me she only had a few months I felt the chill of approaching death keenly and the knowledge was almost overwhelming. When I sat by her bedside and knew she had only a few more hours and after my first feelings of grief, I assured myself that in view of her suffering, I was glad that she was to be released from pain and I felt sure I had myself steeled for her death.
But when she was finally released, I was not prepared for the feeling of hopeless sorrow that came over me. Perhaps there is always that last glimmer of hope for a miracle in everyone’s heart, that this will not happen. The first two or three days after her death I was more or less numb. I remember being at the funeral home with Lila Mae and Susan making the last arrangements and the tears came like rain down my cheeks. I had not realized how final death is and had refused to face it and now it was here and I had no choice.
How do we prepare ourselves to cope with these feelings that come to us when someone we love, someone who is a part of our very being is dead?
Even though we know that this life is only a short period of time, only one more step in our eternal progression, we hesitate to step into the life to come, and we are reluctant to see those we love leave this earth. No matter how profound our belief in a life hereafter, we know it will certainly be different. Maybe the familiar things of this life will not be there. When I see my mother again, it may not be exactly as I knew her here in these surroundings, and so my eyes fill with tears when I think of her as she was when she lived among us and I say to myself surely I will sit at a kitchen table and talk with her, surely her steps will be light and quick as they were when she was well, surely she will be ready for fun times, surely I will hear her laughter and listen to her advice, surely she will still have compassion for all people.
Even in my sorrow how grateful I am that I know that there is a life after this one. Even though the memory will never leave me of her beauty of spirit. I know that some day I will see her again. I am so grateful for the comfort the gospel of Jesus Christ brings to all who believe and put their trust in Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment