I wrote that previous entry a few days ago and had it scheduled to be published this morning.  Little did I know that my mother would pass away Saturday morning.  She died in her sleep of congestive heart failure.  She lives in Detroit and I live in Philly. We spoke last week and it was a pleasant talk.  I was trying to encourage her to use positive affirmations and to have faith in her prayers.  She sounded weak, but in good spirits.  I did not know that would be good-bye.  When I got word of her death I was buying coffee for my wife.  My sister called crying and told me what happened.  As I walked back to my car my knees began to shake.  For while we knew our mother was failing in health, we did not know how much longer she had.  And so she has moved on.  This is what she wanted.  She was suffering and nearly incapacitated these last few weeks.  Now, I believe, she is resting in her Savior’s arms.  She has been transformed, in the twinkling of an eye, as Paul says, into conscious contact with the Wonder Child.  In fact, I daresay, she is a Wonder Child—“For behold, ye are sons and daughters of God.” 

And now I have yet another opportunity to demonstrate the ideas wrote in the previous post.  And because I have the loving support of friends and family, and because I do walk hand-in-hand with the Wonder Child, I know “that out of every season of grief and suffering, I shall see His marvelous wonders to perform.”

So my family and I are on our way to Michigan for my mother’s funeral.  And because I am not over being self-centered, I struggle through worrying about what other people will think of me for how long we are able to stay after the funeral, while at the same time slowly grasping the idea that I will not see the physical form of my mother again.  And as I move through the process of feeling my feelings—the grief and the anger, I can’t help but remember a poem that Emmet Fox put it his book, Power Through Constructive Thinking (Plus) :

Resurgam

There is no death!  Our stars go down

To rise upon some fairer shore;

And bright in heaven’s jeweled crown

They shine forevermore.

 

There is no death!  The dust we tread

Shall change beneath the summer showers

To golden grain or mellow fruit,

Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

 

 

The granite rocks in powder fall,

And feed the hungry moss they bear,

The fairest leaves drink daily life

From out of viewless air.

 

There is no death!  The leaves may fall,

The flowers may fade and pass away;

They only wait through wintry hours

The coming of the May.

 

And, ever near us, though unseen,

The fair immortal spirits tread;

For all the boundless universe

Is life; there is no dead!

 

                                                Attributed to Bulwer Lytton

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog