When You Get to Heaven--Shout!
Eight years ago today at 9:10 AM my family and I concluded our prayer by saying "Amen" and my father took his last breath. This is not about death; it's about life. I am amazed at how often I think of him. One of the last things I said to him was, "Pop, when you get to heaven, shout!" Pehraps you have experienced a loss and can relate. I find myself saying and doing things that remind me of him. While he had his own demons he wrestled with he was one of the most generous people I've ever met. He was born in 1932 to a poor immigrant from Northern Italy. My dad worked his way out of poverty to where he was able to offer to give away a house and college education to those who couldn't afford it. For a long part of his life he was convinced that God would not want anything to do with him because he wasn't "good enough." The last thing he needed to hear was how "bad" he was. He needed to hear how much God loved him in spite of all the chaos and pain he endured. He encountered God and had an awakening to the grace of the Divine. I'll never forget the sense of wonder in his speech as he was marveled by God's grace. If you love somone tell him/her. I wrote the following in his honor.
Dad's Song
It's not the end; it's the beginning.
Time to wipe away the past.
It's not the end; it's the beginning,
Now your soul is free at last.
No more pain, no more sorrow
not for another day, not for a tomorrow.
It seems like only yesterday when you had to say "bye",
with us gathered by your bed all I could do was cry.
I thought it'd be easy, I thought I'd be okay,
but the tears were hard to hold as we watched your sweet spirit drift away.
And now when I'm alone in the night and lying in bed,
with nothing but the silence of your absence screaming through my head.
I hope and pray to dream of you it'd make you seem so real…
and fill the empty ache in my soul that nothing else can heal.
Your seeds are all planted; your garden grows in my heart.
The roots are your spirit from which I'm never apart.
The fruit that remains, are the many lessons you taught
ripe from the love and laughter you so easily brought.
Is that you I so often sense?
Or is it my imagination holding me in suspense?
I wonder if you can see me? Is there anything you'd like to say?
Are you proud of me, and do you admire my ways?
I’m truly sorry, I didn't understand your pain
I should have been more tender, but never once did you complain.
And someday when I make it to where the Streets are paved with Gold,
I know you'll be there waiting with a hand for me to hold.
I know if you were here just what you'd say,
"wipe away those tears son, we'll meet again someday."
Still I miss you… being apart makes me sad,
like when I was a little boy and you were my dad.
3 Comments:
Excellent Rick...
I can relate...and I can't.
My dad's body died in 1978, at 54 - the victim of cancer. My dad's mind and soul started dying a long time before that - and he estranged himself from us with a job in another state, an affair with another woman, and hiding his illness from us until it was all but too late. He died in New York, at his girlfriend's house - there was no "farewell," not even a last viewing of the body. Dad had left his body to science, so there was a memorial service, but nothing else.
It took me twenty years to come to terms with that rejection, and a bit longer to get to forgiveness. Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, I guess...
My mom died suddenly in 1992 - of a massive heart attack - in Ohio while I was living in Kansas. She'd been dead several hours when my sister found her. As with my dad, there was no "viewing," just a simple memorial service at the Catholic church she'd occasionally attended.
My parents, as best I knew, had a religion - but they didn't practice it much the last ten years of their respective lives, and never spoke of it. I had only come back to faith three months when my mom died, and both sisters were (and are) practicing agnostics. So there was no celebration of life, no talk of "when you get to Heaven." The priest did share a passage from the Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9, which was a great comfort at the time. (Check it out.)
The prayer I pray, when I think of them, comes from a sense of hope that God's mercy is deeper than either I can imagine or our understanding of salvation indicates. The song *I* hear - especially when I think of Mom - comes from the group 4Him:
I’ll see you when I get home
In the sweet bye and bye
We’ll walk along the streets of gold
With angels by our side
And time will have no meaning there
In a land of no goodbye’s ...
Oh it’s Good to know
I’ll see you - when I get home.(from the CD Face the Nation)
Thanks for bringing them both to mind, brother. May your faith in an eternal reunion surround you like a warm blanket on a cold night...
Thank you for this poignant look into family and heart, and grace.
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