Are All endings also beginnings ?
September 17th 2009 00:00
Signature Tune
The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, one of my favorite authors, tells the story of Eddie, a simple maintenance man at the Ruby Pier amusement park.
His story begins with his death and then goes on with the five people he meets in heaven. The story tells us there are five people you meet in heaven who will illuminate your life. Each one of them was in your life for a reason — some you knew, maybe some you didn’t, but all crossed your path and altered it forever. This is the greatest gift God can give you; to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for.
I bought this book together with a new Bible and other inspirational books a few months after the untimely death of my six-year-old daughter Vivien in December 2007. I needed something to read that would strengthen my belief that heaven indeed exists. This book comforted me a lot and somehow assured me that my little angel is happy up there. Indeed, even streets of gold would truly seem bare if in heaven we see no little angels there.
The first lesson this book taught me is that fairness does not govern life and death, because if it did, no good person would ever die young.
When my daughter died, I said then it should have been me that died. I even had a bad thought — why not one of those neglected street kids? But then, during her life, other little girls died instead of her too. Before her death, some died of sickness too, and like her through tragic and painful deaths. It happens every day. We think such things are random but there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. It is why we love to see babies…and are compelled to attend funerals.
As I contemplate, I remember the famous lines from “Ecclesiastes 3:1-8” —“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
The second lesson I learned from this book is about sacrifice. We all make them. Sacrifice is a part of life, something to aspire to, not something to regret. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it, you’re just passing it on to someone else. And when you lose something you gain something as well, you just don’t know it yet.
I lost a sweet, adorable daughter but I know deep down, I really did not lose her. I’m just giving her back to someone who truly loves her and someday I’m sure she will be one of the five people I will meet in heaven. What I have gained with this unexpected cross, I have already realized, is my soul’s salvation.
Now I am closer to God, my faith is stronger and I understand fully what to value more in life.
The third lesson I learned is that anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But we are wrong because hatred is a curved blade and the harm we do, we do to ourselves.
Forgive and you will be free of all your pain. No one is born with anger and when we die, the soul is freed of it. When my daughter died, in my thoughts, I blamed everyone around me — the doctors especially — and I blamed myself. Then my friend told me that to help me accept what happened, I had to forgive, first and foremost myself. The pain is still there but not as hurting as before. I will forever miss my darling daughter, my heart will never be whole again but I know it will continue beating.
The fourth lesson is that lost love is still love. It just takes a different form. I can’t see my daughter smile again, can’t hear her laugh again, can’t kiss and hug her anymore. I can’t hear her calling me mommy again, and I will never see her grow up. I will just have to wonder how smart and talented and beautiful she will be.
But when those senses weaken, another one heightens — memories. Memories of the happy years with my daughter will be with me forever. And now I’m holding on to those memories, cherishing them, and most of all I am grateful for them.
Life has to end but love doesn’t.
The fifth and final lesson is that we are all here on this earth for a reason. At certain points in our lives, we feel we are nothing, have accomplished nothing, and we feel sad and lost. That should not be. Our existence is important.
We may not know it, other people may not notice it, but we are all here for a reason. God made sure that our lives, however uneventful, affect other lives.
We need to touch other lives and to let others touch ours, too. And someday we will meet them again.
From: Philstar.com
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