WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED DEATH?

WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED DEATH?

What is this thing that takes away our parents and loved ones and leaves us  with a gaping hole?  What is this thief who comes any time  day or night, month or year -  and you have no power to stop it.   It matters not if you’re far away on a mission or just anyplace.  If you weren’t there you’ll always regret  you didn’t say goodbye,  hold them  and tell them how much you love them, just one more time!  But you cannot go back and change things, you can only look ahead to a life without them, and learn to live with their empty space! 

What is this thing that opens the windows to eternity for a brief moment   and lets us gaze beyond the veil and our narrow thinking of life – giving us a moment  to  pause and reflect about  life  and love and what’s really important.  We will all pass through that door called death, every single one of us,  Christian,  Buddhist,  Atheist, Jew, Muslim, black or white,  it doesn’t matter who or what we are, we will  follow our loved one through that same door to another place and another time!

We’ll leave all of our “stuff” - our baggage we gathered along the way – and our legacy -  the way we lived our life!  We leave everything  behind with our loved ones, our friends as well as our foes.  Whatever we did or didn’t do, and all we owned will remain with them, to make them better or bitter!

I am better for having four loving parents in my life – my own and my husbands.  They left me a beautiful legacy of love, hard work, honesty, and the pursuit of excellence, along with their stuff and their life savings. How generous they were to save and  “pinch their pennies” so their children could have more than they had.  We don’t deserve their money or their stuff, but we get it anyway.  The love of parents is usually greater than the love of their children,  this is one of life’s lessons!

We follow in their footsteps, whether they were good or not so good, and sometimes there are big shoes to fill!  If we can overcome our weaknesses and the baggage they left behind we can heal our childhood wounds.  If we can emulate their strengths we can create a better world!  

We sort through all the stuff then keep the good and get rid of the things that no longer serve us.   We keep their money,  the  good things and the memories to pass  on to future generations, hopefully to enrich and bless their lives! 

They go on to realms of glory and into the loving arms of our Savior, and they rest from the sorrows and pains of this life.  They become our advocates on the other side and continue helping us and giving us strength to keep walking.   And we go on without their presence, but not their love!   Thank you, God, for their love, and their lives!  How grateful I am for their influence in my life! 

But most of all I’m grateful for our wonderful Savior Jesus Christ and his glorious resurrection!  Because of Him death has no sting and the grave has no victory.  Because of Him we will all live again, there is no end!

“If Christ had not risen from the dead, or broken the bands of death there could have been no resurrection.  But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ.  He is the light and the life of the world, yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.”                      Mosiah 16:7-9

How grateful I am for the knowledge that life goes on beyond the grave and families are forever, and we are children of our loving Eternal Father!  I’m even grateful for this thing called death which gives me time to reflect on eternity!