I recently lost my Godmother; she was also my aunt and was very instrumental in my upbringing.
She had no biological children and could not have loved me more if indeed I was her biological child. On May 2, 2015, when I was told that she was “unresponsive” and ultimately learned of her death, my wife drove me to the old neighborhood to her home.
I entered her bedroom where she had passed away in her sleep. The 2 police officers were gathering information for their report. The scene in that bedroom was overwhelming to me, but not just for the obvious reasons of the situation.
Over the years, I have actually witnessed some of my relatives slip away into their death. But this time it was different, there was something else. As I stood there looking at her in the bed, I was fixated on her body’s lifelessness. I repeatedly asked myself, “where did the energy go? Where did she go? How does this energy just transition away from a bodily existence? Where did her movement, laughter, quick wit, and love all go in a moment……. just like that?
The Bible says that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Having recently witnessed in a way that struck me like never before that undoubtedly something was absent from her body, the concept of one’s spirituality has been magnified for me tenfold.
I read a story to end her eulogy. The story ends with children watching their mother enter into the gates of heaven. The last couple of sentences read as follows “And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates closed behind her. And they said, “we cannot see her, but she is still with us; a mother like ours is more than a memory, she is a living presence.”
So my personal plan, both to celebrate her life and to become a better person, is to work exponentially harder on the spiritual side of my own existence since life has reiterated for me in a way like never before that one’s spirit never “dies;” it simply leaves us presumably for those of us who are believers……… to a wondrous and beautiful place!
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