8
" Decades after little Colleen’s death, my sister Kathy still loves her daughter dearly. Colleen was born with cerebral palsy. She died in Kath’s arms in a rocking chair at the age of six. They were listening to a music box that looked very much like a smiling pink bunny.
The opening quote in this book, “I will love you forever, but I’ll only miss you for the rest of my life,” is from Kath’s nightly prayers to her child.
Colleen couldn’t really talk or walk very well, but loved untying my mother’s tennis shoes and then laughing. When Mom died decades later we sent her off in tennis shoes so Colleen would have something to untie in Heaven.
In the meantime, Dad had probably been taking really good care of her up there. He must have been aching to hug her for all of her six years on earth.
Mom’s spirit comes back to play with great grandchildren she’d never met or had a chance to love while she was still – I almost said “among the living.” In my family, though, the dead don’t always stay that way. You can be among the living without technically being alive. Mom comes back to play, but Dad shows up only in emergencies. They are both watching over their loved ones.
“The Mourning After” is dedicated to all those we have had the joy of loving before they’ve slipped away to the other side.
It then celebrates the joy of re-unions. "
― Edward Fahey , The Mourning After
14
" Against FateHey, Fate! When you fail a man, you spendall your time digging a well to trap him.Then you untie the well's wheel rope so that it can roll.And you keep the poor mortal struggling up, only to fall back.You show him a bushel of means and say" This is it. Worry about it, and dream." Meanwhile you spin the wheel of fortune and fill the house of the wicked with jewels,while you force the just and scrupulousto sweep up the pieces.And the man who should not even tend pigsrides a horse as a cavalier.And without a shovel, you scoop ruin onto the houseof the honorable and the just.Fate, if I speak evil of you, you'll claimthe man is jealous and confusedBut why do you look crossly at the learnedand make the ignorant the landlord?Hey, why toss the bread of the wiseso far down the valley?And why should I believe in your justiceWhen you don't serve it to anyone important?Not that you keep either oath or bargain, treacherous one.Whomever you love today and who is raised to a golden throne,tomorrow may be sitting in ashes.How can such a fraudulent judge make a just decision?Fate, friend of the deceitful and devious, you are harsh to the honest.What more can I say except that someday I expectyou to mix up sky and earth and sea. "
15
" O sirs, how many souls, then, have every one of us been guilty of damning! What a number of our neighbours and acquaintance are dead, in whom we discerned no signs of sanctification, and never did once plainly tell them of it, or how to be recovered! If you had been the cause but of burning a man's house through your negligence, or of undoing him in the world, or of destroying his body, how would it trouble you as long as you lived! If you had but killed a man unadvisedly, it would much disquiet you. We have known those that have been guilty of murder, that could never sleep quietly after, nor have one comfortable day, their own consciences did so vex and torment them. O, then, what a heart mayst thou have, that hast been builty of murdering such a multitude of precious souls! Remember this when thou lookest thy friend or carnal neighbour in the face, and think with thyself, Can I find in my heart, through my silence and negligence, to be guilty of his everlasting burning in hell? Methinks such a thought should even untie the tongue of the dumb. . . . [H]e that is guilty of a man's continuing unregenerate, is also guilty of the sins of his unregeneracy. . . . Eli did not commit the sin himself, and yet he speaketh so coldly against it that he also must bear the punishment . Guns and cannons spake against sin in England, because the inhabitants would not speak. God pleadeth with us with fire and sword, because we would not plead with sinners with our tongues (410-11). "
― Richard Baxter , The Saints' Everlasting Rest