Death and How the Relationships Continue
“We are given each other in trust. I think people are much too wonderful to be alive briefly and gone.”—Marilynne Robinson.
When I talk with spiritual friends who have experienced the death of a loved one, I remind them that the God of my understanding does not give us an amazingly loving relationship with someone else and then abruptly takes it away. Death is not a period at the end of a sentence but more like a comma. The relationship still goes on.
Our loved ones continue in their relationship with us, but in a way we don’t yet understand. Sometimes, we can feel their presence. We often sense the reality of their prayers. In his book, A Crazy, Holy Grace (Zondervan, 2017), Frederick Buechner writes about using active imagination with those we love who have died. We can converse with them in the silence of our minds, but we often feel their presence, supporting and loving us just as they did when they were alive.
I also remind friends that those we love are now with us at all times—beside us—again, in some form, we do not understand. When they were alive, we were present with them only when we saw them physically. They are now always with us in a closer relationship than we can explain.
I often feel the presence of my younger brother, Jim, my only sibling, who died much too prematurely in 2014, the day after Christmas. I especially always feel the fun, full of mischief, that we can so easily see in his eyes. I keep his notes by my desk. They are full of encouragement that keeps me going on difficult days. His presence is still here in some form, doing the same. We celebrate his life again this week, since he was born on Labor Day, 1944.
Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/