Some Reflections

Two years ago I was invited to enter the dark shadows with a young traveler, one about to enter the unknown terrain of terminal cancer at age 23. It had been my plan to take Susie to Europe to fulfill her last wish of walking on the ramparts of the Edwardian Castles. Susie was never able to make that journey with me, as her health rapidly failed. She was, too soon, called to make another much longer journey. As torturous as the journey was for her, it has taken her to the ultimate destination, a magnificent city with streets of gold and gates of pearl where there is no pain and no night.

My experiences with Susie as she completed her earthly journey were life changing. Susie gave me a priceless gift that lives on. She enabled me to see much more clearly the extraordinary value of ordinary life and simply sharing it with close friends and family. I think back to my good friend, Nancy, who told me that cancer had shown her how blue the sky really is and how important good friends are.

In the past six months I have seen the flickering shadows dance around me many times. Six months ago, in a balmy southern California August, my mother slipped quietly beyond the darkness after a torturous path that had carried her across several years, to a place free of pain and anguish. Only three months later, just before the nation celebrated Thanksgiving, her only sibling, Elizabeth, my favorite aunt in childhood, followed her to the same destination. A mere two weeks later a nephew at the tender young age of twenty one was driving at night and hit a patch of black ice. He was instantly catapulted into eternity, leaving his family alone for the Thanksgiving holiday. The following month, a week before Christmas, my faithful Aunt Nancy went forward on her journey to experience the true meaning of Christmas for herself. She went to claim the heavenly inheritance which Christmas and Easter made possible for her. It goes on.

Just this past week I returned from the final departure of my favorite uncle, Marion. My father died when I was less than a year old and if I had been given a choice for someone to replace the father I had lost, it would have been this dear uncle. I like to think that my dad and Uncle Marion are catching up on a lot of years.

People wonder how it is that I stay sane and don't 'lose it' with all of this death around me. I have even had some people quip that perhaps it is not such a good idea to be my friend, it might be hazardous to their health. You see, I have not even mentioned the eternal departures of friends and acquaintances that have occurred in the same time period. I think sanity and serenity, in the face of something as challenging as death, comes from seeing beyond it to the far side. It may also come from having once faced the prospect myself of making the final journey very early in life. Somehow, even the hardest things are the slightest bit easier once they become familiar.

There is no question that the trip to Eternity can be a lonely tortured one with much pain, many ruts, pot holes, liquid anxiety, and fear. We are truly fortunate to live in an era when many clinical studies and the collected experiences of millions of people suggest that there really is a fabulous destination at the far end of the journey. These experiences most often have left the travellers completely transfixed and changed for the better. Written accounts of their eternal journeys fill the best seller lists, and rightfully so. The Hope contained in them is truly inspiring. Near-death experiences and other spiritual experiences give much credence to the Hope of the ancient Christian message. One in which the darkness of Good Friday gives way to the newness of life that comes with Easter.

You may be having a really hard time today. You may be travelling into the Valley of the shadow yourself and experiencing vast fear. You may be watching your dearest soulmate of fifty years slipping into the darkness and have no light to offer.

On the first Good Friday it was not yet known that the
Giver of Life was going to be raised up in three days after having, Himself, passed through the darkest depths of death. It is certain that first Friday was called anything but good. There was a level of despair among those close to Jesus that would be hard to describe. What made that Friday good was that the most remarkable event in all of history happened on the following Sunday. Each year much of the world celebrates this glorious event. Each year we emerge from the darkness of winter at Easter to celebrate the radiance of spring.

If you have just lost someone that has walked with you through life for many years, or you have just sat in front of a physician's desk and been given a diagnostic death sentence, then you are probably experiencing a dark Friday of despair and you are profoundly interested in knowing if there is going to be a miracle for you on Sunday. The good news for you is the miracle that happened that first Sunday centuries ago is one that you can appropriate for yourself.

You may not have the safety of many years of good health after a traumatic diagnosis or the healing of time after the heart-rending loss of a soul mate. You may be reading this from a hospital bed and wondering whether you will walk out the front door or get discretely rolled out the back door. You may be sleeping in a bed alone for the first time in fifty years and the flowers are still fresh on the newly turned earth. The loneliness may seem as vast as all of the universe and as black as cosmic night. It doesn't get any harder than that.

It seems to be true of human experience, that by having others simply understand our adversity, the shadows lose a bit of their darkness and the winds howl a bit less loudly. No matter how long you will be required to continue on your difficult journey you can reach out and find a Hand there to help you along. The One who blasted back into history on Easter is waiting to life you up in spirit and assure you the journey will be worth it all.

It seems there is a different set of rules among those who have faced and are facing severe loss of health and well being or a soulmate. There is a graciousness, openness, and transparency that is often missing out here among the healthy and those who don't have to sleep alone. There is no fast-lane there and the road is peopled with some of the most gentle and compassionate travellers you could ever want to meet. On the following pages are memorials to many of these people and their gracious gifts to the rest of us. May their gifts make your journey easier.