Acts 1: 6-14
Thirty years ago, next month, I stood at the grave side of my grandmother, my father's mother. Many said her death was a blessing. After all, she had been sick for many years, a victim of that dreaded disease, Alzheimer's, which steals away our loved ones one memory at a time. This was my first funeral as a young teenager and so I as unsure of how to act, where to stand, what to feel. In the Salvation Army, the tradition in which I was raised, the faith family of my parents and all my grandparents, death is viewed as a ‘Promotion'. Upon one's death they are considered to have been "Promoted to Glory". Knowing this I wasn't sure that I could be sad on such an occasion, although sadness was in my heart.
Rather than stand directly beside the grave for the committal service, I choose to stand back a little, by myself, hiding behind my sunglasses. At the moment in which the final words were spoken - earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust - my attention was drawn upwards the sky. With my head tilted back, eyes looking up, I watched as the dark clouds parted and a single gull flew through the opening into the sun. As I saw this soaring creature a gentle smile came over my face and tears welled under my dark glasses.
When I looked back down at her grave, the beam of the sun was shining directly upon her casket. I glanced around at the others and all their eyes we cast down. I was the only one to witness this accession of one whose body had died, but whose spirit had been lifted beyond the bonds death. It was as though she had, in that moment, risen from the cold embrace of death and soared up into the loving arms of God.
Standing in a similar place this past week, with another soldier who had been ‘promoted to glory', only three short months since her husband's death, I looked up at sky, once again, as the words of committal were spoken. To my utter amazement, this time there were two birds flying up between the clouds. Once again the rest of the family had their eyes cast down, indeed they were hidden beneath a canopy, placed to protect them from the elements.
- "When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
(Comments to Judith at fairbank@primus.ca.)
Fairbank United, Toronto