Over the course of the past week my wife and I, joined by wife's three other sisters and her father, have been as hosts and shepherds gathered for my mother-in-law's final days inhabiting the constraints and enclosure of this planet of her birth. We each brought along personal vulnerabilities, aspirations and prayerful wishes that Loretta's transformation — that unfathomable release into the purely spiritual realm — be as smooth and comfortable as possible. As was to be expected, she had moments at turns sublime and challenging.
What can we the living truly know of the Great Beyond? Nothing of our common existence can penetrate the profound mystery of the inevitable transiting of that door.
The final few days were difficult for the family, most of all for Lauretta: she seemed to struggle mightily to find confort and peace with her destination, or so it seemed to me. Yet, in the last hours, a tranquility emerged. As she slipped beyond us, so too did she seem to become ever more loosely confined by the vestiges of her mortal vessel.
And then, in an instant: she was free.
At long last (eighty-seven years of human limitations!), the doorway opened, the curtain parted, The Way was clear, and she soared forth into the incorporeal realm of pure enlightenment, peace and lovingkindness.
And as a friend-of-friend once said, concerning the death of a loved one: "she's been fine ever since."
Lauretta Book: March 17, 1926 - June 5, 2013.
Requiescat In Pace.
Heaven's Gate, #4167-7D;
© 2013 James W. Murray, all rights reserved.
(click image for larger version)
Details: May 12, 2013, Canon 7D; f/9 @ 1/640 sec; ±0 EV; ISO 800;
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM @ 24mm
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