Easter Living and Dying

Yesterday I had my annual appointment with my 52-year-old cardiologist whom I’ve known since he was six-years-old.  The good news is that I won’t see him again (as my cardiologist) until January 2019 (at least I’m hoping that will be the case). I was taken aback when he told me that a friend we had in common had recently died.  I had not heard this news.  In fact, this friend had called me in the latter part of August to tell me of her husband’s sudden passing.  Following her call I wrote her several notes and tried to call her several times.  Now I understand why those notes and phone calls went unanswered.  “There’s a grief that can’t be spoken, There’s a pain goes on and on, Empty chairs at empty tables, now my friends are dead and gone.”

Death is a reality.  It is  a reality we usually try to ignore.  But that really can’t be done.  Dying is as real as living and life itself will not allow us to ignore death’s reality.   Elton Trueblood wrote, “One of the most striking ways in which a human being is unique among creatures is that, while all creatures die, man alone knows that he dies.”  Thus, through the ages, people have dealt with death, not as a morbid and despairing thing, but as a new beginning.  Long before the Christian era, men and women, in the face of death, held the conviction that death was not necessarily the end, but might reasonably be followed by a conscious existence far more wonderful than the one we know now.  Socrates, four hundred years before Christ, told his judges, “I desire to prove to you that the real philosopher has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die, and that after death he may hope to obtain the greatest good in the other world.”  

As an Easter person, I grieve for those who are no longer living in this world with me.  I miss them terribly.  My life has been diminished by their departure.  There are empty chairs at empty tables now that my friends are dead and gone. As an Easter person, I ask the same questions Kihil Kibran asked.  I affirm what he affirmed.  Do not ask me how I know what I affirm to be so, for I have no rational explanation other than my Easter rationality.

  

“Where are they now?  Are they somewhere in an unknown region?  Are they together?  Do they remember the past as we do?  Are they near this world of ours or are they far faraway?  I know that they live.  They live a life more real, more beautiful than ours.  They are nearer to God than we.”  (Kahil Kibran) 

All doors are meant to open.