equals (=)

For me, Dad's life has been, in a unforeseen way, summarized by his death. I heard the tune "Clair De Lune" again today, and it re-galvanized my thoughts about dad. Somehow I can see the bigger picture, and a wave of meaning and significance often washes over me, that makes me wonder at how death has a way of helping us hear the messages God wants to send us through another's life. It's like dad's life has been winnowed, and the best of him comes up in one big pile that just makes a whole lot of sense to me. Almost as if I have a new kind of translator that helps me hear the words God was using dad's life to speak.

I see dad in my mind on the beach beside the ocean, and suddenly I don't just see dad at the beach, I see dad in the universe. Almost as if the photo image in my memory newly reveals God in the background, in some obscure corner of the scene I never noticed, smiling at the camera as if to say, "One day you'll understand what this really means". All I know is it's as if my memories are beginning to unlock a secret about dad, a secret about what God was doing with his life. The memories are beginning to "convey loftier thought, sweeter emotion, working in my veins like gentle blood" (Yeats).

A cosmic "equal" (=) button has been pushed that in a moment calculated the worth of dad's life, and revealed for us a message that was spoken at a decibel level we can only now begin to hear clearly. This gives me confidence at my own death, that the answers that I seek will start to be distilled from my experiences for those left behind, AND for me as I journey on. This helps me ask big questions, to LIVE big questions that will give God the full joy of answering in a big way one day.