Today marks the Anniversary of the death of my beloved sister. I have far too many thoughts to share them, but in honor of her I wanted to post something I wrote a while ago after hearing about another tragedy. I only ever sent this to a couple of my sisters, but it strikes me today as more of what is in my heart than I am otherwise able to express. Please be kind in reading it and know that it comes from the center of who I am. April, I sure love you. 

Death

I feel very driven to write today. I don’t often do this anymore. After the birth of our first child especially I get so many “glimpses” if you will into eternal perspectives, but I often let the clatter and noise of every day life distract me and as soon as the glimpses come I just treat them like passing thoughts and moments and they’re forgotten before they even fully form in my mind.

This morning I read a Facebook post about a little 4 year old boy who died. In a horror of ironies his family was visiting a cemetery and one of the tombstones became dislodged from its place and fell on him. After many prayers and a day spent in the hospital he drifted from this world into the next. I can’t help but think about death and especially mourning and all its forms. I read what the Mother had to say on Facebook  Her husband posted the death for friends and family to be aware of, but excused his poor wife saying she was beside herself and could be reached at a later date. I read 45 different messages from people sincerely aching for this family in their time of need but as eloquent and thought-filled as so many were, none were as striking to me as the one the little guys mother wrote. She said very simply, “My heart has been ripped from my chest and I just miss my little baby so so so so much.” There is something about someone we are close to, leaving this world that just can’t be fixed. I've found in psych classes that I've taken as well as books I've read, lectures I've listened to, and people I've spoken with that we all want an answer to death. There is the question of where do we go etc. but I don’t mean that this time. I mean the solution. The quick fix. The WHY do I feel this much pain inside of me. And no one can find the answer secular  Quite frankly I think there IS a secular or scientific answer, but it is God, our creator. Few people today want to believe that Spirits and Science exist together, but I can’t FIND another solution. The only possible fix I can conjure up in my own mind is that there ARE such things as souls. We all have one, and it’s not someone’s personality, or the things that they do or don’t do that make us truly YEARN for them. Because we love food but when it’s gone we don’t cry. We love good books and movies and puppies and stars but as much as we miss those things when they are taken away it doesn't often leave a hole that just can’t be filled. I really, truly believe that when we connect with another human being there is a spark, electricity and a connection with their inner self that is REAL! We have ALL felt it, and when that human spark, or soul if you will has gone, we feel the loss in a very literal way and we can’t bring it back. My sister April was taken from us in the prime of her life, leaving behind her baby girl Olivia Kate, and nothing I have done to memorialize her will ever bring that spark of life back to me. No amount of memories, or cooking food she loved etc. satisfies my need for her, because it just isn't’ her. If souls didn't exist, and people weren't different from the other elements of this world then it wouldn't be that way. We can satisfactorily duplicate clothes, houses, cars and other possessions. Even our love of flowers can be fixed when one dies, simply by purchasing the same exact kind of plant the next season. But humans can’t be duplicated, and just like that poor mother said when she lost her little boy, she just plain missed him. She missed his being. She missed that there will never be another HIM in this lifetime. Now what is my point? Today I couldn't help but marvel that every single person in this whole wide universe can know the truth if they seek for it. I know a lot of “non-religious” people, but in the nicest way possible, I know that deep down, in the broadest of terms reaching to all humanity, we are in denial. Death strips the bull from people. We philosophize, and use terms like, “take time for yourself”, “enjoy life to its fullest” and we put band aids on pain from passed loved ones with, “make a memorial for them in your home.” “write down memories and quotes so you can keep them and never forget”, “write the things you miss on balloons and the things you are angry about etc. and throw them to the wind as a symbol of healing and escape from pain”  but I know that C.S. Lewis would agree with me when I ask, why NOT forget? Why do we HAVE pain that endless when our spouse, child, parent or friend is gone? It’s because every single one of us KNOWS deep down that humans are different. That the living organism inside of us called life, is REAL and that someone’s soul can never be duplicated or denied. And if having a soul is real, then all the rest of it is too. Then SOMETHING or SOMEONE created that spark of life. And further, if that is true, then that indescribable love and awe that we feel when we bring life into this world, is a feeling we MUST have been given, or I would add inherited, from someone or something. And just like a flower can’t pollinate and produce a beautiful baby boy or girl, we must have received life, from a source equal to our capacity and greater then our current form. I love the gospel, and I know that it is true. I hope no one is ever able to know me without knowing that. There is a God, and there is no use in denying it, because it becomes simply that. Denial. My heart aches inside for that poor little mother and father today, and wish I could take all of this pain from them. But it is comforting to know that someone CAN and already has, provided a way for that pain to be taken. Hurrah for a Savior who loved us first!

~Dorth