I just needed to see her last Sunday

My Aunt Helen died on Monday evening in the manner which she said that she had wanted to. When I was told that the time was near there was something inside of me that just knew that I had to see her.

It is hard for me to see people that I know and love to be so close to death. There is something so unnatural about it and, yet, so natural as it is my destiny too. I have no idea what I accomplished there. We talked...well, I talked. I talked to her about how kind she always was to me and how much of a pain all of us kids must have been when we invaded her house. I talked about the pool table in the basement and the times we got to play outside in the "country". I talked about how much fun the Thanksgivings and Christmases were when we spent time with her.

It was all so overwhelming.

Her husband had preceded her in death and this closed a chapter for me but especially for her daughters. I told her that I was going to pray silently for her. I didn't want her to think that I had gone. So I prayed. And, after talking to her again, I just had to pray again. I don't think I could have prayed audibly. I wouldn't have gotten through it.

Then I touched her hand and knew that the only thing to do was to commit her to God. There was nowhere else for her to go. Nowhere. I prayed for her comfort and for God's peace to flood the minds of the ones that she was leaving here. She had to go...she had no choice. And she left here with the hope of heaven just like I will.

And then I walked away knowing that would be the last time I saw her here. I had to...I had no choice.

Comments

  1. MarthaApril 3, 2014 at 11:14 AM

    I feel your pain. The night before my dad passed on, I sat by his bed and tried to pray, but the only thing I could choke out through the tears was, "Lord, please come and take my dad." We let him go. We had to. We had no choice. And all through the night we wondered if he would still be there by the time we returned the next morning. He waited until everyone was there before he flew away.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mark DudleyApril 3, 2014 at 12:03 PM

      Thanks for you encouraging words, Martha, and for stopping by. I am often caught between the transformative nature of death and its mind-numbing constraints. I don't know where to gaze at it in times like these, but look at it I must.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

tightvnc keyboard mapping problem in Ubuntu 9.04

Image
I have been, off and on, having an issue with the keys on my keyboard mapping to the correct values when using the tightvnc client when paired with the vncserver vino in Ubuntu 9.04. I am not exactly sure what keyboard layout the client and server was expecting, but it seemed like every time I restarted the OS the keyboard mapping problem would come back and I would be at square one again. Well, I think I have found the workaround I was looking for . Hopefully this will help anyone else that is having this issue.
Read more

The manifestation of the "I" and the gift of self - Part 1

I am continuing my journey through Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body and I had never realized how body-focused the 2nd and 3rd chapters of Genesis truly are.  But then it all makes so much more sense when it was brought to my attention that the body we have been given in a manifestation of me, or to put it another way, the "I". And it goes beyond that still. Not only does it reveal me, but my body also reveals, in no small measure, the image of God. That is not to say that God is made of flesh like me as is depicted in so many Renaissance paintings. The old man in the sky is nothing like the God as revealed in the Bible. However, the love that God is, the holiness that he is, the justice he is, the righteousness that he is...all of it is shown to the world through my body. In a very real way, my body allows for others, and for me, to participate in the mystery (the hiddenness) of the image of God. That is by design; from the beginning.  If God is revealed in nature...
Read more

Let me learn what I need to learn

In the “I don’t know what God is trying to produce in me…” portion of the blog: I work across (not with) an incredibly loud person. We are in cubes and he refuses to use a handset when he is in a conference call…or headphones. Everything is done via speaker phone. Maybe his handset is broken? I don’t know and am too timid (read “interested in keeping the peace”) to ask him. Of course he shouts into his speaker phone as well when he talks. Now he even refuses to use a keyboard. He has a speech recognition program that allows him to speak to the computer rather than type. Good for him! Now we can all hear “Comma…open parenthesis…close parenthesis…tab…tab...tab…” Was it my sin or my parents sin that relegated me to this placement in the office. We all know the answer to that but man…it sure feels like I am getting punished for something.
Read more