Last May I celebrated my 82nd trip around the sun. My body is starting to feel my age, but my spirit feels ageless. I am still enjoying an exciting and rewarding life of challenge, adventure and accomplishment, like that my late wife Mary and I shared for over 50 years. My life of course changed dramatically when she died six and a half years ago, but I continue to do much of what she and I did together for so long. The difference is that although she is not with me physically anymore, I still carry her spirit with me in my heart and mind.
When I came home from the hospice center on the day Mary died, as I entered our apartment, the realization that she wouldn’t be coming home, that she was dead, swept over me like a tidal wave. I uttered a primal scream, dropped to my knees at my bedside and cried for a long time. I slept that night as an exhausted man, and when I awoke the next morning, I cried out to God:
“What now, Lord?”
“Why am I still here?
“What do you have in store for me now?
Over the next few months God began to show me what I was to do. I was to share my life experiences with anyone who was going through some of the trials I had endured, to let them know that God will walk with them through it, and bring them out the other side, strengthened and changed. And that is just what I do. My life is much different now that Mary is gone, but it is still exciting and rewarding.
Mary’s death had a profound effect on me. It brought into sharp focus the fragility and unpredictability of mortal life and the necessity of making the most of whatever time we have remaining. I thank God every morning when I wake up still not dead for giving me yet another day of life. And I ask God to help me use my time that day wisely and productively, knowing that when it is gone it is gone and won’t be coming back. In other words, I strive to live each remaining day to the fullest. And that is a blessing indeed.
I also fully accept my own death as inevitable, but I have come to regard it much differently. I no longer view it as an ending, but as a new beginning, I see it as a passageway to a new and better life, and an everlasting one. Death, rebirth, renewal.
And lately now, I am beginning to view death as a blessing, rather than a curse. As I age and my physical body continues to slowly deteriorate, I realize that leaving behind the pain and the increasing limitations of this body is a good thing. The body will die, but I will continue to live. Death will usher me into a new realm in which there is neither death nor dying, no sorrow or pain, where all my tears will be wiped away, and I will experience joy beyond anything I can imagine.
It’s not that I am hoping for death anytime soon. I still a lot of work to do to accomplish the purpose God intends for me. But when death does come, I will welcome it as a friend and not any enemy.