Life... after death

8/17/12

Twenty 2 years ago, about this time of day (6 pm), I watched my dad pass into eternity. It wasn't unexpected. Just a little quicker than we had originally been told. About two years earlier, he had been diagnosed with malignant brain cancer. Surgery had been done and poison had been administered, but the rogue cells in his brain just wouldn't relent. He was going to die (as we all are).

 I was nineteen at the time. An incredibly self absorbed, narcissistic youth. All I wanted was to escape. And I tried. There was no place in my brain that could process the thought. I had no idea about death (or life). I just wanted my desires to be met and to keep that pesky death thing far away.

It's an indescribable thing to lose someone as close as a parent. My dad really was my hero. Watching the last bit of life leave his body, lips turning blue, pulse slowly fading... I wanted someone to do something, but nothing could be done. Superman & kryptonite. It's true everything becomes blurry and you just go numb. For years. You become accustomed to the numb. Even when life tries to jolt you out of it, you find ways to maintain the vacuum. Oh well...

I guess I'm ok. Life goes on after death. Bills must be paid, lawns must be mowed... Of course I wish I could've had more time with him. I wish he could have met my wife and kids. I think he would have liked them. I wish I'd had more time for deep conversations about death (and life). I remember at his funeral the guy who spoke said he had asked my dad about his salvation. My dad supposedly told him he had taken care of it. I didn't have a clue about that at the time either. I wrongly thought it was about all the good stuff I did weighed against the bad stuff. What a fool I used to be... but after all these years I'm afraid I'm still that self absorbed, narcissistic youth.


"And still He seeks the fellowship of His people and will send them both joy and sorrow to detach their hands from the things of this world and attach them to Himself"-  JI Packer