And What of Death...?

Some of the loneliest of loneliness in life comes with loss of loved ones, and some

of the most sobering concern comes with wondering where they are and when again shall

we see them. Moved by such thoughts Andrew Jackson said: “Heaven will not be heaven

to me if I do not meet my wife there,”¹ Heaven to be heaven must have that which makes

of heaven a wonderfully happy home – with loved ones as part of the completeness of an

everlastingness of life.

How could it be otherwise? How could all this order, all this beauty—the earth,

the sky, the sea, the spring, the magnificent succession of all seasons, the love of life, the

love of loved ones, the endless evidence of Providence, of plan, of purpose—the mind

and memory of man—how could all this be other than eternal and of personal

continuance.

When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, ” said Cicero, “so great a

memory of what is past, and such capacity for penetrating the future; when I behold such

a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries…I believe and am

firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot but be

immortal. “²

“Seems it strange that thou shouldst live forever, ” asked Edward Young. “Is it

less strange that thou shouldst live at all? “³ Life itself is the miracle, and that it should be

always is no more a miracle than that it is at all. And so the meaning, the message of this

moment: that He who gave us birth and life and loved ones has given us also the limitless

possibilities of everlasting life.

And what of death? The poet said it in these four lovely lines:

Ay! it will come, — the bitter hour! – but bringing

A better love beyond, more subtle-sweet;

A higher road to tread, with happier singing,

And no cross-ways to part familiar feet!⁴