When Death Comes

The coming of death is sometimes easy to foretell. There is the look of those who know their fate is sealed. Who lay, pain etched in their faces, waiting for when death will come. For some death is a blessing. The last breath of pain and suffering. The last moment of doom which our flesh has bound us to. Death is coming for us all.

And yet it is so easy to forget. So easy to believe that we are invincible. That death can't come yet. That life can not yet be over. For we have too much too live for, too much left for us to do. So often we go on without a thought towards death. We fear it. We hate it. We run from it. 

But it is not easy to forget or disregard death. Our very blood knows of its limits. Our flesh and bones know there will be an end. We are reminded of death every fall as the leaves turn and the grass dies. Reminded every time we loose a pet. We are almost desensitized to death, because of the TV and movies. And yet when someone close to us passes, fear and grief flood in through the broken dams in our hearts. Death is much too close. For another has left our company, left this floating terrestrial orb that we call home. 

I found out today that a great aunt passed away. Yes she was older, but it was still a shock. She was my father's mother's sister. The family historian. The only one of my Irish great grandmother's children to go to church. (My great grandfather would not let the older children go to mass with their mother). And I feel the lose of her. The history and story of her life, which I will no longer have a chance to learn from her. Each of us has a story to tell and now hers has ended. Mourning starts with surprise and tears. Death comes again and reminds me that none of us are invincible. None can save their flesh from the destruction foretold to all made of dust. 

But along with this foretold destruction, this doom which in inherit in all of our stories, is the reminder that we are not just flesh. We are also spirt, soul. And our soul has a choice. And depending on that choice, our soul is either rapped up in the doom of our flesh, or the freedom of our resurrection. Mercy and grace and blood. A Lion and a sacrificed Lamb. A Man who was God, hung on a cross and rising from the grave. Its hard to not think of death without thinking about life. And as much as death is foretold, so it the end of death.