A Journey No one Wants To Take: Recovering From Loss

I've been noticing lately that many older people are rapidly dying off. It is almost like an epidemic. I heard of two recent deaths in the past two weeks alone. Maybe I'm super sensitive now that both my parents are gone. I don't have that support to reign me in any longer. I can't see my way past this loss. It is a journey I didn't want to take.

Yes, the experts say that the great loss I recently experienced will take time to recover from and move on. My head knows that I do need to move on. My heart though still wants to dwell in the place where my parents were still alive and relatively healthy. I think a part of me longs to rid myself of the horrible images that keep popping up. I can't seem to get rid of them.

I try now to recall the healthy pictures. Right now there is still too much pain. I do want to get past the images of my father being carried out of the house more dead than alive. I also want to free myself from the image of my mother in that hospital bed unresponsive. I can't. The more I try the more these images haunt me.

I imagine that many people have horrible images to banish. It is probably only a few privileged souls that have the luxury of not having to see the consequences of sin. Yes, that's right. I said it. The suffering that I saw with both parents is a result of sin. The blessed ones are the ones that go quickly and quietly. The image is of someone closing their eyes to sleep and never waking up. It is probably the one type of death that we all want if we're honest with ourselves. Yet there are only a few that I know of that had that type of death.

We all tell ourselves that we're in control. We're not. We don't get to choose the death we experience or the way someone we love dies. My father died a slow and painful death. My mother died relatively quickly but no less painfully.

I don't know which one I'd prefer. We don't get to choose. God knows when and where he will call us home.