Today I attended a funeral or can I say a celebration of a wonderful earthly life? Hopefully that doesn’t cause anyone to take offense, those words just resonate inside me better. I have come to approach death as a graduation from our earthly body. The funeral for me is a way for loved ones to be able to celebrate the things the earthly body was able to accomplish and to recognize the good deeds done, the ways a person was able to accomplish the mission they were sent to perform while here in their body. The beautiful thing that I am grateful to know is true – is that the person (in spirit) is still alive and continues on being the person they were here on earth…just in a better place.
I have been the observer of death on different levels, the granddaughter, the aunt, the friend, the cousin. While I have felt sadness and loss, disappointment, and grief. I don’t want to pretend to understand how difficult it must feel to be the wife, the daughter, the mother, the sister. Death has not come that close to home yet for me personally. I can’t imagine it nor do I want to. My heart hurts when I think of the aching that must go on. I have watched and heard from my own mother – she has been the sister, the daughter, the niece, the cousin, the sister-in-law. She has taught me and I have learned from her faith. As I sat at my Grandfather Baldwin’s funeral I noticed her choking up – I leaned over and asked, “Are you thinking about your parents?” And she said, “No, I just know it is all true!” A speaker was talking about the plan of salvation. My own eyes brimmed with tears and my heart knew what she said was right. Through her faith I was blessed with the same knowledge.
As a young girl I attended many funerals and have continued to as the years have progressed. I feel blessed to have witnessed with my two eyes and one heart the effects of death in all of its sweetness. I have seen Christ-like actions: loving neighbors and friends offering to help in anyway, countless food items dropped by, a note expressing condolences. But even more tender are those of caressing hands on a sweating brow, the gentle guiding of uneasy steps, the brushing of gray, curly hair, the painting of toenails, the blanket sewn to cover a chill. These pictures have been painted on my heart as witnesses of genuine Christ – like love in perfect action. I am humbled when I think of the love that can exist and be expressed from one human to another. It is sweet, yes, very sweet.
I happen to thumb through the Bible on Saturday when I found myself open to Ecclesiastes chapter 7. I don’t ever remember reading this chapter before in the 34 years I’ve been alive. It seemed timely as I have been contemplating the meaning of death….
“A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth. IT is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning;…”
After reading this I then remembered the only chapter think I have actually read in Ecclesiastes before Saturday – chapter 3. “To ever thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Last thought, today in the closing remarks of “the celebration of a wonderful life” a.k.a. the funeral, the Bishop quoted Elder Russell M. Nelson as saying, “We are born to live and we live to die.” I hung onto this thought and added it to my list of acquired thoughts. It is true we are born to live on this earth – to learn to grow and become who we are meant to be. We live here on earth so that when we die (or turn in our earthly bodies) we will be prepared to qualify for exaltation.
I have faith in my Heavenly Father. I know His plan for us in perfect and we can trust Him in that He knows the right time for all things. We are here to learn of His plan, to show we can trust Him with it, and strive to become like Him as long as His timing allows.