Released from Clay

Transition came silently and, as of 4:30 pm this afternoon, Poppi is released from the confused confines of the clay he lived in. I'm not intelligent enough to explain in metaphysical detail what took place when breath and heartbeat ceased, but I am wise enough to admit that I do not know how to explain it. Some say death is the start of a grand journey toward the ultimate reunion. My thoughts run counter to such linear speculation for I see heaven as a matter of dimension, not distance. Heaven is not a far off place--some biblical Land of Oz--and the Father is not, as Bette Midler sang, in the distance. Scripture throbs with passionate cadence that God is near, making heaven not a trip, but a mere step.  It is what Marcus Borg calls, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time."  For all I'm worth I believe that Poppi has now met Jesus again for the first time, and the only waiting for him is for the opportunity to introduce us.

A Room Called Peace

Buechner wrote about A Room Called Remember, but I'm sitting this morning in a room called peace.  There is a giftedness about watching life draw to a gradual close without strain or struggle, silently, peacefully. Poppi's breathing has slowed and will soon stop altogether, and according to every indication it could go momentarily unnoticed when it happens. In a whitewashed room such as this, life scales back to the essentials--a breath, a heartbeat, a swallowing. And suddenly, what matters most in all the world is this sacred sharing of each slowing breath.  Perhaps in the stillness I hear a voice say to me, "Cherish better each moment with the ones you love. Savor more sweetly your own daily gifts."  Bonhoeffer wrote of this in Life Together: 

"We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts... Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things."

Connected Loss

I'm not sure it's possible to endure loss without connecting it to previous, seemingly unrelated losses. When my mother died I instantly began to grieve my father's passing fifteen years earlier. As we face my father-in-law's pending departure, I grieve the loss of my mother three years ago.  There's nothing logical about such a practice of association, but it happens nonetheless.  Perhaps this eases back the corner slightly on the mystery of life--we were created for relationship and cannot understand life in isolation. Each is a part of another, even without an associated genealogy.  I think I'm only beginning to gain an elementary understanding of the inherent value of humanity to humanity.