Life isn’t fair.
But love and joy and a lifetime of memories are good.
No one can know themselves until they are faced with mortality. I’m not talking about one’s personal mortality. I think most of us are braver than we realize.
I’m talking about the mortality of the people closest to us. We know death is cause and effect. We understand the cycle of life and the inevitability at the end of existence. But when faced with reality is the moment we come to know just what we are made of.
And we fight this ridiculous battle. When IS it time to let go? How much time do we feel we deserve at the end of it all? Is it selfish to hold on? Is it as scary as it seems to go? What does the end look like? Does it hurt? What really lies on the other side?
I was born and raised in an unassuming modern Christian home. We didn’t use labels. My Lutheran family decided we were Lutheran. My Catholic family decided we were Catholic. But we really weren’t either. We just lived this faith thing like it was fact. I suppose most of the time we took it for granted. We got some good theology along the way and some bad theology, too – which simply means to say, we’re very not perfect.
But growing up with faith for a better afterlife brings comfort. The only thing I do question is what will it be like, not whether it will be there or not. I accept that a lot of loved ones have ended up there – hopeful more than I realize. I wasn’t terribly concerned with grief.
Until the call came for my last, living grandparent.
Is it harder because I understand I’ll never get to pop up for a lunch visit again on this Earth? Does it hurt more because I feel the stretch of time and it seems like an eternity without her? Or is it simply that I’ve had more time to love her than my other grands and therefore more love to lose?
Something will take us all. This is natural progression. It’s also a blessing. Sin keeps us from God and the only way to be whole with Him again is through death. This isn’t a worship of death and decay, but a hope of redemption once corrupt nature takes its course. Faith doesn’t make it any easier to bear loss. It just offers hope.
And hope is a wonderful thing.
This has been,
Fanny
Written Things 