Dear Ruby Brenlyn,
Good afternoon, sweetheart. Your mom and dad have been sending such cute
pictures of you, but it is not the same as being with you in person. I miss hearing your chatty talk and laughter
that comes from down deep inside. I miss
seeing your beautiful smile and those sparkling eyes.
Your Grandpa Jud is recovering from his second hip
replacement surgery so it will be a few months before I can get down there to
see you, but I know that we will be together again soon and many more times as
you grow up into a marvelous adult.
There will come a time, someday, hopefully in the very far future, when
I will no longer be with you. On that
day I will leave you and all of our loved ones behind and go to be with
God. I know that parting like that sounds
very sad, but let’s talk about it.
In the past year or so, Granny and I have had a
stark reminder about the certainty of death.
It started when a friend of mine from high school, Tommy Dodd, who was
the best man at our wedding, passed away at age 63. Then it seemed like the flood gates
opened. Dick Liden, one of my dearest
friends, had a heart attack and died at age 65.
Three of Granny’s aunts, Rosemary, Joanne and Vicki, passed away,
amazingly within just a one month period.
A good friend and neighbor, Mike Hogan, accidentally drowned down at the
marina. Mark Chambers, the partner of a
life-long friend, succumbed to a protracted battle with cancer. Finally, my God-son, Ryan Gosa, died
tragically at the tender age of 23.
All of these deaths were difficult to take and we
still grieve the loss of these people who shared important parts of our
lives. We miss them all very much. It got your mom and me talking about life and
death and friendship and what happens now.
Your mom had previously experienced the pain of separation with a friend
and then a relative and this string of new losses was bothering her
considerably as it would any caring person.
She wanted to know if I thought when people die if that was a final
separation….if they were gone and we would never see them again. What I told her kind of brings me to my next
pearl:
Thirty-Seventh Pearl: “We
Are Joined For But A Moment in Life, but Our Spirits Are United For Eternity in
Death”
All religions deal on some level or another with
death. Most religions also deal with
what happens after death and ponder the question, “Is there an afterlife?” The whole concept of an afterlife is
predicated on the existence of one’s self apart from our bodies….a spirit which
is separate and eternal. People who
embrace the Hindu or Buddhist religions believe the spirit of a person passes
on from one body to the next in a re-birthing process known as
reincarnation. However, the three great
monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which account for just
over 54 % of the world’s population and 68 % of all people who are adherents of
any religion, believe there is only one life.
They believe the spirit is eternal but there is only one body and one
opportunity to live on planet Earth.
So what happens to the spirit after you die? As Christians, we believe that our salvation,
through our faith in Jesus Christ, unites our spirit with God for all eternity. When we die, we go “home” to God and that
home is identified as Heaven. Whether
Heaven is an actual place or not I will leave to the Biblical scholars to debate. For me it is a much simpler concept. Heaven is our eternal spirit in eternal union
with God. The alternative is our eternal
spirit in eternal separation from God.
And God forbid the alternative.
Your mom then asked the next big question, “What
about those people we love on Earth….will we see them in Heaven?” I believe we will. We will not be in our human bodies so we will
not see them as they appear to us on earth, but I believe we will know their
spirits and we will be joined with them in spirit as we will be joined with
God.
Our focus will be different. We will be focused on God and that beatific
vision will overcome us and comfort us and provide that environment which will
be devoid of the pain and suffering we experience here on Earth. The pain and suffering will be replaced with an
environment of perfect love. I believe our relationship with our loved ones
will continue in Heaven, on a more perfect level and with more intensity than
we possibly can imagine with God at the center.
So, my darling Ruby, I may have to leave you for a while,
but we will be joined again along with all of our loved ones…forever. In the meantime, I can’t wait for you, your
mom and dad and the rest of the family to gather at “Camp PK” this summer. It will definitely lift my spirit and fill me
with joy.
I love you, bunches and bunches,
Grandpa Jud
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