...Things Unseen...
September 25th will always be a special day for me. Today would have been Nana's 79th birthday, and I'm sure she would have done something truly fabulous with all of her adorable church lady friends in true Joyce fashion. No matter how old I get, even when I am a grandmother myself (Lord willing), I will always treasure this day.
This morning as I sat feeding and rocking Lucy, I had a philosophical conversation with her about her grand-Nana, life, death, and the whole idea of things unseen. She thoroughly enjoyed it by the way. I could tell. Death and the Afterlife are things that have simultaneously fascinated and terrified me, but I've found certain answers and beliefs as an adult that have taken the edge off of the terrible earthly finality of death. As a Christian, I do believe that we have an eternal Afterlife where we are continuously in the presence of God. Christian children are taught that Heaven is a wonderful paradise where everyone lives in a mansion, walks streets of gold, spends idle time in gardens more luscious and verdant that anything we could ever imagine on Earth, and walks daily with God. Who would turn that down, right? But as I got older, I started to hear things at church about the Afterlife that scared and disconcerted me. "Your family members don't really recognize you when you get to Heaven; everyone knows everyone as Brothers and Sisters in Christ. There's no difference." "Your relatives who have passed on cannot see you from Heaven because it would make them sad, and there is no sadness in Heaven." I have never forgotten these things as I've gotten older because they made me fear the death of my loved ones and my own death even more. "I don't want not to recognize my grandparents as my grandparents when I get to Heaven! And I sure don't want to forget everyone left behind here on Earth," I would think to myself whenever someone started talking about death in this manner. Then I would begin to feel guilt, "Who am I to question God? We're promised that Heaven is perfect, and maybe our idea of perfection changes when we get there." But that still didn't make me feel better. Even as an adult I find these ideas unnatural and quite unsettling...but I no longer believe they're true.
My first revelation toward this came, oddly enough, in Honors Physics. I had Physics 5th period senior year, and I was in class with all of my friends and one of our favorite teachers. It was fun; we built things; we did experiments, but it wasn't really a place for existential theorems...until I learned about the First Law of Thermodynamics. Of course there is much more to this than what I'm stating, things like inexact differentials, entropy, and (ugh) math, but the simplified version is this: energy cannot be created or destroyed. It's such a weird thing to think about. You can't make energy. You can harness it and change its form, but you can't make it or destroy it. All the energy on the planet has been here since the beginning of time and will always be here until...well, whenever. That got me thinking about all the different kinds of energy out there. You think of things like heat and steam, but what about things even more abstract like love? What is love really? I don't mean what does it feel like. I literally mean what IS it? What is it made of? Where does it go? In my opinion, love is the epitome of energy. Love is the engine by which we can do crazy things, stupid things, amazing things, wonderful things, terrible things. It's energy. That was one of the things that I really struggled with when Nana died. We loved each other so fiercely, so completely, that I felt empty without her love. But then something bizarre (or fantastic) happened; after the initial shock of her death wore off, I didn't feel as empty. I didn't feel like our love was gone. And at that time I realized that it was ridiculous to think that just because she was physically gone, her love for me was gone too. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. We've loved each other forever. Physical death can't change that.
My second revelation has come a little more gradually and perhaps, some may think, a little more ridiculously. There have been times during the past (almost) four years when I've suddenly smelled her perfume in an empty room or unexpectedly thought of what her hands felt like or woken up in the morning and felt as if I'd been with her during the night or even just simply sensed her presence near me. Some Christians may say that's just the mind playing tricks or the desperate longings of a broken heart. But it's not. I'm not some Ouija board whack job. I don't see my grandmother's spectre lingering in the darkened doorways of my home. I'm not lighting candles on any given rainy night to seance her into appearing. These things just happen on their own and are completely innocuous.
There have been countless times when I've wondered both silently and aloud about my grandmother's final hours, minutes, and, yes, even seconds. I sat by her bed and held her right hand long after the nurses had turned her morphine drip up so high that we'd never see her in a conscious state again. I held her hand for hours. As the rest of her body became cold, her hand stayed warm. Perhaps it was the warmth of my hand or maybe it was something else. I saw her breathing becoming even more shallow, slowed, and sporadic, and I called the rest of my family over to her bed because I knew what was happening. As she took her last breath, I was still holding her hand. I was still holding her hand when we called the nurse into her room and she placed her stethoscope to Nana's chest and softly said, "She's gone." I was touching her as she silently and gracefully slipped from life into death. I wonder if she knew. Did she know I held her for so long? The nurse kept telling us that, even though she was unconscious, she could still hear us on some level. Could she feel us too? After she died, I went home and wrote her a letter immortalizing all the things I wanted to say to her as she lay there because I was too overwrought to string together a paltry sentence. I am so much better at writing things down than I am at saying them, so I wanted her to know how deeply I loved her and what I would miss the most. I read the letter at her funeral, and I had the funeral director place a copy in an envelope beneath her beautiful, still, clasped hands in her casket. She was buried with it. I wondered if she knew, if she heard me, if she could see me reading it to her. I wanted her to know these things.
Now here comes the ridiculous part. Bear with me. I adore the show Long Island Medium. If you've never seen it, watch it. For those of you who don't know, the show is about a regular woman from Long Island who happens to be able to talk to the dead. I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous, right? But seriously watch it. The Medium's name is Teresa Caputo, and she is amazing. I have never seen anyone like her. She is not one of these Mediums who makes vague statements like, "I'm getting a J name. No. Maybe a K? Who lost someone with a J or a K?" She looks straight at whomever she's reading and says, "Who is Michael? Michael is talking to me." I'll admit that I'm a little skeptical of most psychics and mediums because I do feel like they prey on the emotions of fragile people, but Teresa is the real deal. It's. Insane. She knows intimate details and doesn't beat around the bush when she's reading someone. Anyway, there have been several instances where Teresa is reading a person and says, "Your mother says thank you for singing Edelweiss to her as she lay dying. She knew you were there, and it means a great deal to her," or something along those lines. She has also said to people on a few occasions that their loved one knows that he or she was buried with a favorite book, piece of jewelry, or even...a letter. Even before I watched this show, I truly felt like Nana knew. How could she not know? Our love can do anything. Our love overcame death. I truly don't believe that God gives us family, that He gives us all-consuming love, just to take it away. God loves us. He reveals this to us daily (whether or not we want to realize it) with small miracles, little coincidences, or, yes, even the First Law of Thermodynamics. Angels walk the earth unseen, so do Demons. God is always with us. There are so many things we cannot see, who's to say that the spirits of our loved ones aren't always with us too? What better place for them to be?
In closing, I'd like to make a few more points about life and death that I've come to realize over the past twenty-seven years. I'm held both in awe and fear of the intense resilience and simultaneous fragility of the human body. One hears stories of survival beyond all odds. People can live without limbs, without organs, without parts of their brains. But one also hears about perfectly healthy people felled by one blood clot (like my grandmother), one burst blood vessel, one mysterious infection. It's maddening to think that we as humans can surmount mind-bogglingly negative odds while being so fragile at the same time. We live in a constant dichotomy of strength and vulnerability; it can drive a person crazy if this thought is really dwelled upon. I believe, however, that the knowledge of this state, this dichotomy, exists in all our minds. We're all human, after all, and what is man's destiny but to depart this earth at one time or another? Regardless of your religious beliefs, Mortality is frightening, but mortality is also wonderful. Mortality is what makes the good times even sweeter. It's what makes you take notice of and pleasure in things like the particular way the setting sun casts a golden film on everything during late summer. It's what makes you breathe in the air on a night when you're out with friends enjoying yourself and you think, "I wish this feeling would last forever." It's because that feeling is a moment, and that moment is gone as quickly as it arrived. And, after all, a moment is the only thing separating life and death when you really think about it.
Nana, I love you. I miss you. I pray for you every night. I am forever grateful for the immense love that we shared in life and still share in death because I know in my heart that you've never really left.
This morning as I sat feeding and rocking Lucy, I had a philosophical conversation with her about her grand-Nana, life, death, and the whole idea of things unseen. She thoroughly enjoyed it by the way. I could tell. Death and the Afterlife are things that have simultaneously fascinated and terrified me, but I've found certain answers and beliefs as an adult that have taken the edge off of the terrible earthly finality of death. As a Christian, I do believe that we have an eternal Afterlife where we are continuously in the presence of God. Christian children are taught that Heaven is a wonderful paradise where everyone lives in a mansion, walks streets of gold, spends idle time in gardens more luscious and verdant that anything we could ever imagine on Earth, and walks daily with God. Who would turn that down, right? But as I got older, I started to hear things at church about the Afterlife that scared and disconcerted me. "Your family members don't really recognize you when you get to Heaven; everyone knows everyone as Brothers and Sisters in Christ. There's no difference." "Your relatives who have passed on cannot see you from Heaven because it would make them sad, and there is no sadness in Heaven." I have never forgotten these things as I've gotten older because they made me fear the death of my loved ones and my own death even more. "I don't want not to recognize my grandparents as my grandparents when I get to Heaven! And I sure don't want to forget everyone left behind here on Earth," I would think to myself whenever someone started talking about death in this manner. Then I would begin to feel guilt, "Who am I to question God? We're promised that Heaven is perfect, and maybe our idea of perfection changes when we get there." But that still didn't make me feel better. Even as an adult I find these ideas unnatural and quite unsettling...but I no longer believe they're true.
My first revelation toward this came, oddly enough, in Honors Physics. I had Physics 5th period senior year, and I was in class with all of my friends and one of our favorite teachers. It was fun; we built things; we did experiments, but it wasn't really a place for existential theorems...until I learned about the First Law of Thermodynamics. Of course there is much more to this than what I'm stating, things like inexact differentials, entropy, and (ugh) math, but the simplified version is this: energy cannot be created or destroyed. It's such a weird thing to think about. You can't make energy. You can harness it and change its form, but you can't make it or destroy it. All the energy on the planet has been here since the beginning of time and will always be here until...well, whenever. That got me thinking about all the different kinds of energy out there. You think of things like heat and steam, but what about things even more abstract like love? What is love really? I don't mean what does it feel like. I literally mean what IS it? What is it made of? Where does it go? In my opinion, love is the epitome of energy. Love is the engine by which we can do crazy things, stupid things, amazing things, wonderful things, terrible things. It's energy. That was one of the things that I really struggled with when Nana died. We loved each other so fiercely, so completely, that I felt empty without her love. But then something bizarre (or fantastic) happened; after the initial shock of her death wore off, I didn't feel as empty. I didn't feel like our love was gone. And at that time I realized that it was ridiculous to think that just because she was physically gone, her love for me was gone too. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. We've loved each other forever. Physical death can't change that.
My second revelation has come a little more gradually and perhaps, some may think, a little more ridiculously. There have been times during the past (almost) four years when I've suddenly smelled her perfume in an empty room or unexpectedly thought of what her hands felt like or woken up in the morning and felt as if I'd been with her during the night or even just simply sensed her presence near me. Some Christians may say that's just the mind playing tricks or the desperate longings of a broken heart. But it's not. I'm not some Ouija board whack job. I don't see my grandmother's spectre lingering in the darkened doorways of my home. I'm not lighting candles on any given rainy night to seance her into appearing. These things just happen on their own and are completely innocuous.
There have been countless times when I've wondered both silently and aloud about my grandmother's final hours, minutes, and, yes, even seconds. I sat by her bed and held her right hand long after the nurses had turned her morphine drip up so high that we'd never see her in a conscious state again. I held her hand for hours. As the rest of her body became cold, her hand stayed warm. Perhaps it was the warmth of my hand or maybe it was something else. I saw her breathing becoming even more shallow, slowed, and sporadic, and I called the rest of my family over to her bed because I knew what was happening. As she took her last breath, I was still holding her hand. I was still holding her hand when we called the nurse into her room and she placed her stethoscope to Nana's chest and softly said, "She's gone." I was touching her as she silently and gracefully slipped from life into death. I wonder if she knew. Did she know I held her for so long? The nurse kept telling us that, even though she was unconscious, she could still hear us on some level. Could she feel us too? After she died, I went home and wrote her a letter immortalizing all the things I wanted to say to her as she lay there because I was too overwrought to string together a paltry sentence. I am so much better at writing things down than I am at saying them, so I wanted her to know how deeply I loved her and what I would miss the most. I read the letter at her funeral, and I had the funeral director place a copy in an envelope beneath her beautiful, still, clasped hands in her casket. She was buried with it. I wondered if she knew, if she heard me, if she could see me reading it to her. I wanted her to know these things.
Now here comes the ridiculous part. Bear with me. I adore the show Long Island Medium. If you've never seen it, watch it. For those of you who don't know, the show is about a regular woman from Long Island who happens to be able to talk to the dead. I know, I know. It sounds ridiculous, right? But seriously watch it. The Medium's name is Teresa Caputo, and she is amazing. I have never seen anyone like her. She is not one of these Mediums who makes vague statements like, "I'm getting a J name. No. Maybe a K? Who lost someone with a J or a K?" She looks straight at whomever she's reading and says, "Who is Michael? Michael is talking to me." I'll admit that I'm a little skeptical of most psychics and mediums because I do feel like they prey on the emotions of fragile people, but Teresa is the real deal. It's. Insane. She knows intimate details and doesn't beat around the bush when she's reading someone. Anyway, there have been several instances where Teresa is reading a person and says, "Your mother says thank you for singing Edelweiss to her as she lay dying. She knew you were there, and it means a great deal to her," or something along those lines. She has also said to people on a few occasions that their loved one knows that he or she was buried with a favorite book, piece of jewelry, or even...a letter. Even before I watched this show, I truly felt like Nana knew. How could she not know? Our love can do anything. Our love overcame death. I truly don't believe that God gives us family, that He gives us all-consuming love, just to take it away. God loves us. He reveals this to us daily (whether or not we want to realize it) with small miracles, little coincidences, or, yes, even the First Law of Thermodynamics. Angels walk the earth unseen, so do Demons. God is always with us. There are so many things we cannot see, who's to say that the spirits of our loved ones aren't always with us too? What better place for them to be?
In closing, I'd like to make a few more points about life and death that I've come to realize over the past twenty-seven years. I'm held both in awe and fear of the intense resilience and simultaneous fragility of the human body. One hears stories of survival beyond all odds. People can live without limbs, without organs, without parts of their brains. But one also hears about perfectly healthy people felled by one blood clot (like my grandmother), one burst blood vessel, one mysterious infection. It's maddening to think that we as humans can surmount mind-bogglingly negative odds while being so fragile at the same time. We live in a constant dichotomy of strength and vulnerability; it can drive a person crazy if this thought is really dwelled upon. I believe, however, that the knowledge of this state, this dichotomy, exists in all our minds. We're all human, after all, and what is man's destiny but to depart this earth at one time or another? Regardless of your religious beliefs, Mortality is frightening, but mortality is also wonderful. Mortality is what makes the good times even sweeter. It's what makes you take notice of and pleasure in things like the particular way the setting sun casts a golden film on everything during late summer. It's what makes you breathe in the air on a night when you're out with friends enjoying yourself and you think, "I wish this feeling would last forever." It's because that feeling is a moment, and that moment is gone as quickly as it arrived. And, after all, a moment is the only thing separating life and death when you really think about it.
Nana, I love you. I miss you. I pray for you every night. I am forever grateful for the immense love that we shared in life and still share in death because I know in my heart that you've never really left.
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