That Sweet By and By...

As I sit and write this post, my sweet grandmother is probably within hours of finishing her course here on Earth.  In the final days and hours of Bernice's life, she talked about seeing people in her room that she didn't know but who knew her.  She talked about a woman with a rosary.  In the final days of Debbie's life she talked about a man named Ty who was "way too cute for her" and was hanging out in the room with her.  Now in these final hours of my Mimol's life, she has seen angels and is asking who all these people are in her room.  She asked me Tuesday "who those two men were"...she said "it's like they're waiting for me".  She's talking with her late mother and sister as if they're in the room with her.  And maybe they are...

There is a process that happens when someone passes from this world...a blurring of the lines between our earthly reality and the next.  There is a lack of clarity for them in what they are experiencing because they can't quite separate the seen from the unseen.  Because slowly, they begin to SEE the unseen.  I can tell you that laying in bed next to Bernice and next to my Mimol, I *felt* those "people"...but I couldn't see them.  The room is peaceful even when the person who is passing is agitated.  There's an unexplainable serenity to the environment that I just can't put my finger on...

This is not something quantifiable.  There is not a scientist in the world who can explain what happens in death aside from the organic nature of the body systems slowly shutting down one by one.  There is no black and white explanation for why they see people they love who have passed...why they see "angels"...why they hear singing...why they reach out for things unseen.  You can't quantify it.  You can't explain it...

But having experienced this passing process at different times in the end of 4 separate women's lives in the last 16 months, I can tell you that you will NEVER convince me that there's nothing spiritual about the process of dying.  I know what happens when the body organically dies.  I've seen it first hand.  I've heard the sounds, I've seen the process.  THAT part might be quantifiable if you must quantify something.  But it's what happens before all of that that is unexplainable and too perfectly synced between 4 women who hardly knew each other or didn't know each other at all for me to believe it's all just a set of incredibly uncanny coincidences.  They each took different medicines, they each were afflicted with a different illnesses, there was not a whole lot that was similar between the 4 of them beyond the fact that they were dying.  But they heard things, they saw things, they felt things...and when they were each gone there was a strange peace about it all.  I'm certain it will be the same with my sweet Mimol when her last breaths are drawn.  There is a serenity that is beyond all understanding.  The soul is not quantifiable.  It's not something you can "prove".  But you'll never convince me that there's not a realm beyond our perception occurring right alongside our reality.  And how sweet it is to know that those we love and have lost are there not waiting for us, but existing there with us in perfect peace and serenity without the confines of time and space.  What a marvelous thought, Heaven.  That sweet by and by...