Leaving for Home

Have you ever been on such a good holiday that the thought of returning home filled you with dread?  

The prospect of returning to work, bills, every-day concerns proved over-whelming?

The how-can-I-delay the inevitable consumed the remaining time, ruining the last few hours? 

Please just one more day, then I will happily go?

I am sure that we have all been there, wanting just a few more hours of the good times, a few more moments to take another photo, make one more memory, buy one more souvenir, have one more cup of coffee at our new favorite cafe.

Over the years I have talked with many people facing their own departure from this planet (including my Mother) and all have wanted more time! I have yet to met anyone with "bags packed", eagerly awaiting for the final boarding call.

I have worked with, and known, several people who decided to take matters into their own hands and take the "assisted departure" option, and I can tell you, unlike the theme song for the much loved TV series, MASH, suggests "suicide is not painless".

I have taken many funerals, and one thing that I have discovered in talking to the families of the deceased is that death usually comes as a surprise, something that they have seldom, if ever thought about. Death and dying surrounds us daily, yet we pretend that it's going to happen to someone else. We "magic" it away, by using terms like "passing on/over" The "deceased" is "asleep" or "gone to rest" "in a better place" or a hundred other euphemisms employed to try and take away the finality of death.

I have seen a son weep sorrowfully over the fresh grave of a mother that he hadn't spoken to for 20 years, and I have seen the father of that son refuse to shake his son's hand in a gesture of reconciliation. I have heard sad words of "what might have been" spoken over the coffin of a former business partner, who then became a bitter rival. My own brother refused to attend our Father's funeral, a man grievously treated by that son, his first born male descendant.  Death separates...and it's without doubt humankind's greatest fear.   


But death is not the end of our story!
Life is short and so uncertain. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14b). Moses said to the Lord in Psalm 90:5-6, “You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning-though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered." It is sometimes said that nothing is certain in life except death and taxes. But that is not wholly true. A clever man with a good lawyer or accountant can find a way around most if not all of his taxes, but no one escapes death. As George Bernard Shaw remarked, “The statistics on death have not changed. One out of one person dies."

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2 Corinthians 5:1 NABS 

In September this year I will celebrate my 70th Birthday. Will I make it? The odds are in my favor, but then odds are nothing more than actuarial calculations. Both my parents made it to their 77th birthdays, but I also know that every breath is a gift from God, The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10 NKJV


As to what happens after we die, science has nothing useful to tell us. The thousands of researchers who have studied death have no certain knowledge about what happens a minute after we die. We do not get the answer from philosophy or from history. The ancient Egyptian civilization was obsessed with death and the afterlife, their often well-preserved mummies can impart no wisdom on the subject. The atheist tells us that when we die, that's it.... the poet says we become part of the universe.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/do-not-stand-by-my-grave-and-weep-by-mary-elizabeth-frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/do-not-stand-by-my-grave-and-weep-by-mary-elizabeth-frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die. 

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weepI am not there; I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow,I am the diamond glints on snow,I am the sun on ripened grain,I am the gentle autumn rain.When you awaken in the morning's hushI am the swift uplifting rushOf quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there; I did not die. Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/do-not-stand-by-my-grave-and-weep-by-mary-elizabeth-frye

If you visit a cemetery, all you know for certain is it is full of dead people who once were alive. Try as you might, you cannot divine from studying the dead what happens when we die. King Solomon wrote, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2) This is not as "morbid" a verse that one might necessary think; very few of us give much thought to matters eternal at weddings or other joyous events, but when we enter the "house of mourning" to farewell a loved one, a friend, or a colleague we stare death in face. We are confronted with the inevitable end of life. Want to know what happens when you die.... attend a funeral of a believer, that's as close as you will get to an answer to the question that's on everybody's mind.

Are you ready to leave for home?

"Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" 

John 11:25-26 NIV