One year ago today, at around 1:00 in the wee hours of the morning, a great light filled my mother’s room at Vista Springs assisted living. She opened her eyes, and there stood Jesus, smiling at her.
“It’s you,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s time, Mary. Time at last.”
He reached out his hand, and she sat up and reached out hers, and he took it and lifted her up. Standing next to him, she saw her old, withered body lying still in bed.
“Am I——?”
“Yes, Mary. You’re alive. Fully alive, my precious, sweet Mary Therese. Now you have your heart’s desire. It’s time to come home. ”
With him, into the light she stepped. It was just that easy, as natural as shedding an old, tattered garment that had served for a time but was never meant to last. One far better had been held in reserve for her, and now at last her time had come to wear it.
The welcoming light enveloped her like a cloak, then receded to a glow that shone like the sun on a vibrant, far-reaching landscape. Near at hand stood a handsome young man, smiling at her with joy. “Bob!” Mom exclaimed. “Mary!” said my dad. “Just look at you. How beautiful you are!”
I like to think that this is how it happened for my beloved mother. It’s as near as my fond imagination can get to the mystery of her transition from the ravages of old age—from her brittle body, now almost ninety-four years old, and from the suffering and confusion of dementia—into the dewdrop clarity, the homecoming, and the forever youthfulness and belonging of heaven.
Our imagination is not reality itself, but it is given to us for a reason. In our fallen world, it can lead us astray. But for redeemed hearts, it can also give us glimpses, imperfect but trustworthy in their source, of a great and wonderful and eternal truth. Of C. S. Lewis’s island. Of the apostle John’s New Jerusalem. Of our heart’s deepest longing, planted there by our heavenly Father because he means it to be fulfilled and intends it to call us forward, upward, and homeward until it is.
As it is written:
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
(1 Corinthians 2:9–10)
Today my feelings are a mix of sorrow and gratitude. I feel grief that my mother is no longer here. But I would not have her back—how selfish that would be of me. She is infinitely more happy now with God than she ever could be here in her very old age. I am thankful to my Lord that he took her as he did and when he did, in peace in her sleep, sparing her from the turmoil and suffering of this present age. The state of our country and of this world, the horror and heartbreak of COVID-19—these are of no concern to her. Truly, the prayers I prayed for my mom during her long and hard decline, God answered perfectly on August 13, 2019.
So today, my good heavenly Father, I thank you for the memory of my dear, loving mother—for the gift of your daughter, Mary Therese, in my life during the time allotted both of us. Thank you that today she is with you.
Does she dance? I never knew her to on this earth, but now there is no reason that she wouldn’t and every reason that she would. That she laughs, that she sings, that she is glad beyond words, of these things I am certain. For you are her Savior and her Life.
“In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)