Sometimes it seems to me, and the thought might seem somewhat obscene to our conventional understanding of old age, that things are not always as they seem. That period of growing incapacity, mental or physical (and sometimes both), that often precedes dying is a kind of preparation for the bliss of having it all removed. All of the decay, the weakness and disability. And to be brought in, whole and perfect, to the presence of the One, the One for whom your whole life has been but a preface. It's almost as if, having one’s faculties and capacities intact, becomes a hindrance to that process of spiritual preparation, and they need to be gently stripped away.
In our conventional understanding, death is seen as a winding down of affairs, rather than a building up and a preparation for a truer reality and way of being. Our efforts tend toward making the process as quick and painfree as possibility, and we question God when it becomes a prolonged season, wracked by pain and disability. Without a doubt, it's tough for those who love, those who care, and those who sit by bedsides with unanswered prayers. But for the individuals themselves, in my mothers case, for sure, and, I am persuaded also, in the lives of Margaret and of Betty, there’s a growing awareness that this is but a passage, and a preparation for something far greater.
For those who don't have this hope, no assurance of a life beyond, or of One who loves and is waiting to receive you in His arms, then it is nothing but a big obscene joke. One last bitter laugh of meaninglessness, when our small petty lives disappear down the drain. But for the one who has faith, it is a walking on toward the sunrise, like the sunrise over the Tejo this morning.
