Determined to cry

Determined to Cry

William J Corbett

There are times when we can’t be happier and feel we may burst. Myself,I look to the Heavens and thank God for such feelings. I know that nothing could have been gifted from any less than Him and I am always humbled, knowing I deserved much less. Daily I pray,as do most of my kind…that one day we will return to Him and be made that home in Heaven with our relatives and friends that we were told about. Jesus had said,”I go now to prepare a place for you. In my Fathers house there are many rooms. Why would I have told you this if it weren’t true?”.

Todays world is a much different place. Although,not much different is the world among close-hearted family and friends. If someone were to tell you something significantly different than what you believed to be true,you may choose to go along and see, sometimes finding that they had led us astray for their own good. When we have heart-strings to someone, though, and they say this same thing,”Why would I tell you so if it weren’t true?”…in these words we know that they have told us the very truth they would bleed as in fact the truth is their blood.

It is in these types of relationships that we are torn in two. I have read that there were times when people lived hundreds of years. They were Blessed and probably yearned for the day they could leave here,too. Their knowledge is something that can not be replaced. Small bits of it may be gifted to those close to them,yet what they have learned had to come to them in a way they could understand, in a way they could keep and use the knowledge. Everyday I hear people that use quotes…I am sure we all hear them and some repeat them. The wise words from Alaskan Proverbs to Buddha. Maya Angelou and Mother Theresa. The Dalai Lama and the Rev Martin Luther King.

How is it that some people understand us to our very soul?

How is it that so few can put into words how we can only feel?

Why is it when we speak with our peers or those younger than us,we understand their smile to mean so many different levels of understanding yet when we speak to our elders and they smile, we know they understand?

It is in this gift of understanding that we truly realize our greatest wealth is in our elders. Some have lived through economic depressions the size that we can not imagine.It is in these depressions that they learn what natural resources mean in every day life. My mother in law,Norah,God rest her soul,could not throw away used tin foil. She would fold it and store it in a drawer. Bread bags never went to the trash as we may need them to keep our feet dry and insulated. Drains were never plugged from the bacon grease being poured down them. It was saved for use in a next meal or for baking something. My grandfather Albert used to fish the Niagara river every day to bring meals to his family and when he was Blessed he would bring food for his neighborhood. They bartered for goods. He would repair something and be paid in chickens.

Can you imagine?

World wars…not one or two countries involved in decades long killings but real “world” wars. The killings are no less significant in any war,but when the whole world is at war, every country feels it right down to every citizen that knows all of their men and women,most of them still children of their late teens and early twenties are involved and may never be seen alive again.

Our elders…

It is in them that we have learned most everything. It is by their advice or by their silence that we have learned the most reactive things in our lives. It is in them that we hope and it is them who we keep hearing long after they have gone. Many of the funniest and some of the saddest situations involve them in our lives. As my mother lay unresponsive in her bed, I wondered why we don’t live for hundreds of years any longer. I didn’t feel we should have to let go of our loved ones so soon. My idea of “so soon” would probably be much different than hers, having survived through a great depression,a world war and several other smaller wars,lack of medicine and medical knowledge the likes that took her baby brother Joseph of “dropsy” when he was an infant.Raising seven children and helping raise her grandchildren. Suddenly losing her husband of fifty-plus years and the dementia that had set in to rob her of clear thought and not able to realize why things no longer made sense and she couldn’t speak what she had wanted, often explaining she could no longer find the words that were “right there” but could not be harnessed for her use.

It is our elders who make us, form us, are our greatest protectors.

It is our elders for whom we feel the greatest loss at their return to God and His heavenly home. It is at this time when we gather the many albums of photographs and retrieve the memories they had thought to save. We remember each moment from the click of the shutter we hadn’t heard,yet we hold it in our hand and it is an indelible mark in our minds of that moment and the few seconds that surrounded it. In these photos we set a precedent in our minds allowing these fine memories to blot out anything else of their lives, of our lives with them,and the happiness they had brought to us.

They are Angels now and will persevere in prayer for us to one day move again to their side and I am sure they feel humbled by our tears and thoughts. They also know how it feels to bask in the glory of God. I am sure they feel we should save our tears as they have no longer any commitment to a deteriorating body and they now have their questions answered in full.

God rest your beautiful soul Patricia Hawke. You are surely in His presence and He has graded you and found you lacking in nothing. Your beauty never faded and from deep within,you have always lived. Knowing that the best teacher lives her word,you did this and you have shined for all to follow in the light you knew best. Thank you!

Pray for us until we meet again.

I wish you peace!

~b