MOVING ON, OR TRYING TO

"'I AM the Alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord God Almighty, who is, who was, and who is to come." (Rev. 1:8 TEV)

If God is almighty, all-powerful, then we can trust Him. I can trust Him.

I have let myself stare too long at the years I may yet have to live. Knowing that during those years I will become increasingly old (don't we all?) and increasingly weak and incapable of doing things and enjoying life. I may become sick and frail, unable to drive or care for myself or my home. It is a future none of us want to face, let alone live through.

Jesus' brother James wrote, "Remember this: whoever turns a sinner back from his wrong ways will save that sinner's soul from death, and cause a great number of sins to be forgiven." (5:20 TEV)

To change my own feelings of grief which are leading me down the ways of despair, I must change my attitude, my beliefs about sickness, arthritis, old age, and aging, and know that I don't inherit weakness, pain, and disability, but strength, health, and the ability to do and act. Yes, my mother was weak, in pain, and--thanks to considerable incompetence on the part of some (don't get me started on that story)--disabled in the last few weeks of her life, but before that she lived for 98 full years, dying only a few days short of her 99th birthday. She was strong, healthy, and able to do most things for herself. She went up and downstairs at will, dressed and undressed herself with little help from me, made her own bed, set the table, fed herself, and cleared the table and helped me with the dishes, read the newspapers and magazines, watched TV and enjoyed playing with our cats, wrote letters and signed checks, walked around the house and around the yard, clipped bushes and pulled weeds, sat on the front porch in the good weather, and talked about old times and current events.

"Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment." (Eccl. 8:5 KJV)

I must avoid thinking about the consequences of aging and other evil things, or acting like "an old lady" as my mother warned me. My spirit is ageless, eternal. Nana in her nineties always said that she still felt like a girl of eight in her mind even though her body had aged. I didn't understand what she meant back then, but I do now. I am whole, strong, and free. My body heals, reaching always for strength and health, no matter how injured or sick I may become.

Nana always said, "The less you do, the less you can do; the more you do, the more you can do."

James was right. "Remember this."

When my mom passed away last year, someone at the wake told me that the grieving was the easy part, that dealing with the legal and financial headaches was the hard part. Though I feared they spoke the truth, I didn't really believe them. After all, I loved my mother very much. She was my best friend and in every practical sense, the only family I had. I have since learned that they were right.

December was a blur of grief, of holidays I didn't want to celebrate. January was consumed with interminable hours-long phone calls, documents to be located, papers to be filled out and mailed. February is proving to be the month of waiting for promised letters, promised checks, promised phone calls.

I am not by nature a patient person, but I'm learning that when folder after folder in the rack on my table is labeled "Awaiting ... [this, that, and the other thing]", there is nothing you can do to hurry the universe along no matter how much you want to get through this and move on.

This summer I lost three kitties. Tipsy and Colleen were run over on different days near the 4th of July. I buried the kitten sisters next to each other between the lilac and the cardinal shrub. Pinocchio died of leukemia and feline AIDS. I buried him behind the garage in his favorite sunny place. Then my mom passed away. And just when I thought I had no tears left to cry, my 13-year-old kitty, sweet Sally May, died in the kitchen one night in January.

At the end of life for all creatures, we must release them to God, not that they weren't always His and in His hands, but that the time of our stewardship, our borrowing of them, has come to an end. And while we grieve here and bury their broken bodies, we know their little spirits are running free in the long grass of heaven.

It is the same also when we must let go of human friends and family members. "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Even so, blessed be the name of the Lord." To paraphrase an affirmation from the Unity School of Christianity, "We release them to God's care and keeping, knowing they are being guided to their good."

Even though our hearts are breaking and our tears flow, we must remember that to God, death is just a coming home to Him, and that someday we will see our loved ones again.