Fair & Cruel

"How could...something...so fair...be so cruel? When this...black sun...revolves...around you. There is an answer in the question...and there is hope within despair. - Death Cab for Cutie (Black Sun)

Imagine my surprise, a few weeks ago, after I posted my last blog, and seconds later my mother's tablet (which I haven't had the heart to disconnect) beeped. A message had arrived in her "inbox" : my blog. I had no idea she'd subscribed to it. The irony. And I thought, "This is all...so...unfair."

If you think about it though, really, really think about it? Death is fair. It is, perhaps, the fairest thing ever. An eternity in heaven, a home amidst the stars, free from pain and sorrows, in exchange for a life that was glorious at times, yes, but crushingly brutal at times as well. Want to leave your sins behind? Want to sleep well, really deeply, as you never have before, free from stress and fear and quiet hours fraught with the deep and painful concern that no one will ever truly understand you in this world? God eventually says, "Come with me." And when your time comes? I bet we all fight it, but I imagine not for one second longer than it takes to catch a glimpse of it: of what's next, of the loved ones waiting for us there, and the realized utter reality of heaven. It’s probably the easiest of goodbyes, because now you know that even those you leave behind will be along soon enough. No need to worry.The sting of death is lost when its reputation is destroyed. I bet my father whistled his way outta here and my mother? I bet she sang. A sweet hymn. For sure.

I’ve noticed that when I get into trouble with my grieving? It's when I start making my mother's death about me. It's hard not to make someone else's death about you, when you're all that's left : they're gone. Forever. But we must be careful, for the devil is in "forever". It's just a word - again, for those of us left behind - that can, yes, trigger hopelessness. But, in truth, forever isn't such a long time. If, for example, I have thirty years left on this earth? Then I'm only thirty years away from seeing my mother again. That's no "quick minute", I know, but it's a lot shorter than the vast expanse of this lie called “forever”. And between now and then God would have blessed me with a lot of living to do.

A friend gave me a book on grieving recently and in it there’s the suggestion to look at the entire tragedy of loss from God’s perspective. Imagine the difficulty of creating a creature so delicately complex and then asking it to figure itself out, knowing full well, as the Creator of the universe, that it never entirely can, due to the free will that must be imparted to it for that journey of self- discovery to even begin. Without free will you'd just have a bunch of robots. Yet the very thing it needs is the very thing that hinders it. For free will is all about life; to exercise it or to surrender it. In the process, these lovely creatures do so many beautiful things, and hurtful things and things that are just downright mysterious. And you let them, in Your grace and mercy, because you know that in the end they will be yours again anyway. Together at last, you can finally tell them what it was all about, and no matter what, you will love them through and through.

If you really, really think about it? It just doesn't get any fairer than that.