It will be a week tomorrow since Rich’s funeral. His passing was harder for me than my aunt’s was. I guess because I saw him more than I did my aunt and talked to him more than I did with my aunt. My aunt was very shy and has always been someone that was a lot older than I am, so I was always shy and hesitant to be myself with her. I always felt like I’m her little niece and she’s my grown up aunt who I reverently admired. Nevertheless because I had lived with them while I was in high school and I have memories of her growing up, she was special to me. Rich on the other hand lived just four miles away and his family came over for birthdays and holidays, or we went over their place for birthdays and barbeques. His wife being disabled, Rich did everything. So whenever they needed something he would be the one that would come over and knock at our door, and many of those knocks I answered. Knowing those knocks will not be coming anymore makes me really sad. He was always in a rush somehow and never had time to sit and chat, but couple of days before his brain hemorrhaged he came by to pick up a phone he was borrowing from my husband, and he actually entered the family room and took a chair to chat with us. I had that feeling then something’s odd. He had never done that before. Even at that moment as he sat there I pondered about what this meant. Of course I didn’t want to face the reality that he will be leaving us. He was breathing hard as if he just ran the whole four miles instead of driving up to our driveway, but I knew it was related to his heart problem. I didn’t think too much of it and didn’t want to embarrass him by asking if he was all right. Last time when I made a fuss about seeing him after his heart attack he laughed at me for it. He kept saying to me, “Yeah, I’m all right. I’m fine.” He didn’t like people making a fuss over him. Still I worried about him. As a matter of fact before he arrived I had told my husband that I’ve been seeing a vision of a white coffin. I said to him, “Someone is going to die.” Yet, even with that I refused to acknowledge it would be him. I took that white coffin to mean a woman is going to die because men usually have darker coffins. It didn’t look small enough to be a child’s coffin, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a child even though I always associated white coffins for children. I thought definitely it was going to be an adult and that it’s not going to be a man. But who knew that taking that time to chat with us was his way of saying goodbye to us, and that it would be my last glimpse of him. I guess my spirit knew but I didn’t want to acknowledge it.
The day before his wake I woke up with a pain in my heart. I had not even felt this pain for my aunt and yet there I was feeling this pain. I thought, “If I’m feeling this pain, what of his wife and children? How are they coping?” So I said a prayer for them. I thought to myself, “I thought time is supposed to make things better but I feel worse.” It seems to me it got even worse two days after his funeral. Somehow having that vision of Rich made him feel alive to me not dead, and now that reality is setting in I’m feeling really terrible that this has happened. Surely, it is just a dream it can’t be real. Someone else died not him. Everyday it seems to me I wake up with sadness in my heart that’s just there, uninvited, yet there nevertheless.
Then yesterday Rich’s sister called and left a message wanting to know if I had gotten the bill for the funeral luncheon so I could show it to my husband. I called her back and told her I didn’t. So we worked it out that she would email it to me instead. As she was about to hang up she called out my name and wanted to know if I was still on the other line, I said, “Yes.” Then she told me how the vision I had shared at the funeral about me saying goodbye to Rich in the hospital comforted her. She started to choke up and told me, “Knowing that he’s in a better place now really helps me…” She said, “Thank you.”
I didn’t think too much of that speech I gave before I sang at the funeral, except to wonder if I should have shared that vision I related in my other blog post “Finding God’s Comfort”. But I felt at that moment, even though I hesitated for a millisecond that I should share it. I felt strongly that I should. Couple of days after the funeral I started to have doubts and wondered if I should’ve just kept that vision to myself. I thought some people would think I’m crazy or that I just made it up. But her words took the doubts away and comforted me in return. How often we take for granted that words of comfort given to others can turn around to comfort us in return. I wanted to share my song that day, “I Will See You Again” (even though I was so scared to do it because I haven’t sang in public for years) simply because that song had comforted me. I didn’t think of even saying any words much less sharing that vision of saying goodbye to Rich and God allowing that he would respond to me. I’m so glad now that I did share it. It comforted Rich’s sister and I’m sure many others as well. And now it has comforted me because as I had told her in my text yesterday, that as far as I’m concerned Rich is not dead, he is alive. His spirit lives on and he is with God. I’ve decided to relive that experience of saying goodbye with Rich and I realized now that his spirit was very much in that room. I heard his voice so audibly tell me, “Goodbye Sheil” like he was standing there talking next to me. Then when I started weeping I heard him speak to me in my spirit, “What are you crying about? You will soon be here.” And he was right. We will soon see each other. This life is just a moment, a twinkling of an eye. Before you know it we will all be with him. The Lord is going to come and take all those who love him to be with him forever. There, we will know no more pain or sorrow.
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” {1 Thessalonians 4:16-18}
