When we face the ultimate parting, it is a formality that catches us unaware. There are no words possible to encompass a life, and certainly no comfort for those bereft. It is simply over for those left behind with their deep sorrow and grief. For the person who has died, the mystery is solved, the riddles gone, all questions have been answered. They have made that startling transformation and now know what has tantalized man from the dawn of time. The enigma of the meaning of our sufferings here on this earth remains for us the living. That and the terrible knowledge that we will have no resolution until we have followed where that loved one has gone, that road they have travelled, that dark valley with its cypress trees and soft winds, that journey of faith that we will all make alone.
We wake suddenly in the night and cry, remembering. The incomprehensible is our comrade now, and it sits silent, eyes cast down in reverence to our human frailty.
We invest this life with such import and such significance, yet ultimately it means very little or nothing compared to the dawn of wisdom and reunion that begins with the drawing of our final breath. There is now a celestial river of light where the person we loved lived their life, their agonies and struggles quenched in the brilliance of Divine Compassion, their soul embraced by a Love of which we have only a shadowy human conception.
They stand well and strong in heaven. They laugh at our fears and troubles because they are face to face with God.
