A Brave Friend
01/10/16 07:20 AM
Death is the completion of life.
We fight death when it approaches, but we fight life for most of our lives. We can’t explain life. We can’t tuck away the pain or the joy as if we have any real control. In the first place, we aren’t allowed, and in any case trying to explain life and what we are here for denies the power that God lays out for us both in life and in its completion.
We cannot explain either but we have to accept both. We have to accept our eventual death. That part is inevitable. We also have to accept life, but most of us don’t want to. We try to put it off while we’re doing other things. Not living life as it comes, with all of the messy parts, seems safer. Money, control, judgment (especially of others), personal desires, worry…we deserve all of these things, right? We’re entitled, and they all seem so important….except they’re not. They are cop outs. They are cheap counterpoints to the real thing, and they create a risk of missing the true gift of life.
Most people don’t get that but Leslie did. She knew all of these things intuitively. She had a natural wisdom and always preferred looking at the good and the bad straight-on rather than falling for the smoke screen of chatter and distraction. That gave her intensity and passion and integrity, and it rubbed off on those around her. It’s why all of us in our little circle of family and friends see eye to eye on so much. Back at what we now call “the old place”, she was always above the fray and always brave enough to do the right thing. The new practice had her total focus, and she brought to it the integrity that we have strived for. With Ben and “B” and the rest of her family, she was even at such a young age a true matriarch, taking care of everyone and everything.
So, what do we do? What must we do when a friend has to give up her place in life? The same as we should be doing anyway and at all times:
Be there.
More than that, we have to consider what we do while being “there”. After all, we are what we do.
If we are bad, we try to “get”.
If we are good, we try to give.
If we are wise, we try to get by.
To be both good and wise is to live among each other and help each other get by. Leslie was, and always will be in her spirit, both good and wise.
“Getting by” requires nothing more than trusting God, having our daily needs, forgiving, and trying not to screw up. That is pretty much the substance of the Lord’s Prayer.
We can and we must live. We can’t defer it with noise. We can’t, as the Bible says, “fight the reins” in death or in life. We have to do it together. We can’t live alone, and we must never let others live alone. It is in solitude that worries come to seem bigger than they are, bigger than life.
We also cannot stand still. We have to go forward, be brave, and help each other to be brave. Looking bravely into the eyes of life, we can look past any difficulty, even past death, and into the continuation of life.
There is a guide for this. It is in the lives of the Bible. It is in the lives of each other. It is in the lives of those who are good and wise, who are others living for others.
Facing down death is simply facing down darkness. Our fear is of darkness, uncertainty, of needs unmet, tasks undone, loved ones unfulfilled.
But, there is no darkness. There is only the Lord of Light, the Lord of love and life, who is there for us when we must face any next step, who is there for each of us in each other. There is no unknown. There is only that to be discovered and conquered. God gives us himself and he gives us each other to make certain of that.
So, Little “B”, we are all sad now, but you don’t have to worry. Mommy gave you her heart before she went to Heaven. She gave it to you right in your heart, to take care of and to have her with you. And she gave you daddy and everyone you know to help take care of you and to help you take care of her heart. She will always be there and so will we.
