This weekend we were headed to my son's piano recital and I was in the passenger seat while my husband drove along the back roads toward the highway. I noticed that the clouds were moving really quickly across the sky, and they were fat, puffy cumulus clouds, so their shadows were very visible and rushing toward us on the road as we drove. It seemed as though we were about to be swallowed by shadows, and that made me think about
death.
Like preparing to jump into the lake for the first swim of the summer, the first time the cloud shadows overtook the car I instinctively held my breath. We were approaching it as quickly as it was approaching us, so we were driving toward a huge shadow as it came barreling toward us on the road. I sucked in my breath, and waited to see how it would feel as we plunged into the "less-light" of the shadows.
I realized a couple of things that will probably sound creepy, but, it was a heady, exciting imagining, that I was "about to meet God," about to plunge into some unknown dimension or other-world. I wondered how death really feels. At the very moment, do we hold our breath and take the plunge, or does it sneak up like sleep and we simply fall comfortably into it, or some combination of both or neither?
I am sure for some it is a terrifying thought, even if he feels "prepared," but for that briefest split-second, I felt ready. I don't worry about my children or husband doing without me anymore. I know they need me, and I need them (obviously, or I wouldn't still be here), but if God removes me from their lives, it will be for their good, and their ultimate, spiritual good is not something I want to interfere with when it is clearly out of my realm. (Doing without them is another story.)
How do you feel about death?
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2 comments:
in my unwritten "Theology of the Unborn" death becomes nothing. I ask God every day when I say my rosary for the graces that will come from the Hail Marys and their last few lines, if (when IT comes) He will remind me of all the unborn children who never made it to daylight, and that in that moment when I transition, that I can be mindful of their cruel transitions...the millions and millions of them... that took place during my lifetime. And so, as long as I don't die by being sucked thru a vacuum tube or burned to death in a saline solution, any form of dying for me will be...if you think about it... rather peaceful and dignified. Then I can begin my purgatory, which, I pray, will be a thousand years long. And in it I will work as a slave to the unborn, working on their mansions and doing whatever they ask. As long as I remember them, in a strange but real way, I guess I don't fear it one bit. Praise Jesus for the unborn, eh. They are so brave.
Len, you are a precious soul.
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