I hope this may bring some people some comfort. It was the most awful time in my life and yet it returned me back to God and Jesus and what I had been raised to believe but was not sure any of it was really true. Sometimes the worst experiences of our life can become the best experience, although not realized at the time, when it makes a spiritual change within us.
I was engaged when I was 23. Knew him for 3 years, dated him for 3 years and we got engaged. I had no family, so Tommy was my everything. We were friends first and then fell in love. It was a good time in my life. We were both 23 and had gotten engaged that summer. About a month before Columbus Day in October, he came over one night (I had my own apt. since I was 18, he still lived at home with his younger sister and father who had a pacemaker, so he was on disability and was at home during the day. They owned a home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. He also had two older married sisters and one older married brother with children and his nephews (all boys) adored him.
His mother had unexpectedly died three years earlier after I started dating him, after returning from a physical with her doctor. Tommy's father went to pick her up from doctors to drive her home. She had a massive heart attack in the car on the way home and died instantly. This was straight from getting a physical.)
Anyway, I regress. Tommy was also Catholic (a real Irish Catholic family) but we had stopped going to church and all that and went out on weekends with friends.) Out of the blue, he comes over one night and tells me he thinks he wants to go to confession, so he can take the Eucharist again, and start going back to mass. I was shocked and said where is this coming from out of the blue. He said I don't know. I just feel I need to do this. He asked me to join him (and I will regret this forever) and I said No. I don't want to go back to church. So, he told me he would be going on Saturday nights and coming over a bit later. I thought it was odd but was fine with it. He went to confession, and then he went to church for three Saturdays in a row and taking the Eucharist.
His father was going to sell the house and take his much younger sister who was 14 to move upstate NY near his married daughters. Tommy was going to get an apt. with me (my lease was almost up) since he worked in the City. We had gotten engaged, we had picked out the apt., put down a deposit and were expecting to move in on November 1st. Tommy also got a promotion at work and was going to get a raise on November 1st. I had a rough childhood, so this was one of those moments in life where everything was going right. I believed God was making up for my childhood. I had gotten a new job and was only there about three weeks. Things were looking great and we were excited about moving into our new apt. on November 1st and him getting a promotion. In an instant your life can change. His family and I buried Tommy at age 23 on October 31, 1982.
He went out after work at his job with coworkers for drinks after work on Columbus Day weekend. Tommy was 23 and one of his coworkers introduced him to some Wall Street stockbroker who was 35 and making big bucks. For whatever reason, they hit it off, I was told, love the same football and baseball teams, and he was also engaged. He lived in Staten Island, but offered to drive Tommy home to Brooklyn. This man who was 35 had just purchased a Maserati, which is a very expensive sports car. I am sure Tommy was excited when he seen it and that the guy was going to drive him home. Well, the man was going (according to newspaper) at over 100 mph into the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and he lost control of his brand-new sports car (he had it less than a month) and car flipped over several times. Seat belts were not a law then so neither one of them had it on. Took firefighters and emergency crews almost 3 hours to get them out of car. I saw the photo in the news, and I am amazed that both of lived.
Tommy was in surgery for 17 hours. The doctors told us he kept asking for Anne Marie, but they had no idea who I was (and I didn’t have a phone in my apt. anyway). They told us he had been in surgery for 17 hours and they did not expect him to make it. The doctors said they were both talking when brought in and the doctors could smell the alcohol on both of them. He said it was because of the alcohol that at first, when brought to the hospital, that they were still talking and not yet feeling the pain. He was six foot three and husky but bc he did not have a seatbelt on he was tossed around in that car like a doll. The man did not have a seatbelt on, but the steering wheel acted like a barrier.
Tommy did not die that night. I was the first his work was able to contact so I was the first one at the hospital. I had no idea what “ICU” even meant so I walked into the room expecting him to be able to talk to me. I was not prepared for what I saw. He already looked dead. He was on a respirator and had a big tube going into his throat and these machines that kept going on and making this awful noise. His jaw was wired and almost every bone in his body was broken.
He did live through the night. As a matter of fact, he lived for three weeks after the accident. He could not talk bc of the respirator and I was sure he would be brain damaged, but he was not. He had one hand and he could write on a pad.
I seen him go from complete fear (he wrote down Am I going to die?). I then bought him a pair of rosary beads and he had 24-hour nurse care, but I always seen the same nurse because I just started a new job and had to go to hospital after work. She told me that every time she checked on him, he was praying on the rosary.
He “crashed” three times and we all rushed to the hospital expecting it to be the end. I saw him suddenly and he was very calm. He wrote down that he wanted everyone in his family and me to come in separately.
I didn’t get it yet. I mean he crashed three times (meaning that they said he was in blue code and was going to die) but it didn’t’ happen.
I went in and he wrote on a piece of the paper. I love you and you made me so very happy. I want you to know that but it’s time for me to go home. I got scared then because I thought OMG…he is having brain damage. He thinks he is going home soon. So, I told him No, you are not going home soon, you will have to stay in hospital for a while but eventually one day you will be getting out.
He shook his head vigorously in a no-no response and motioned for the pad. I gave it to him, and he wrote “I seen my mother last night. She was at the foot off my bed. I am going home with my mother. She is coming back for me.” I was puzzled and scared by what he was saying and NOT getting it.
The next day was a Saturday and I was getting ready to go to the hospital when his father called. He passed away that very night.
It took a few months and then everything fell into place for me. His sudden need to go to confession and go back to church three weeks before the accident happened. His absolute terror that he was going to die only to watch him praying and then be absolutely peaceful and calm. And his telling me that he had seen his deceased mother at the foot of his bed, and he was going home with her.
I realized that somehow God gave Tommy some kind of premonition about what laid ahead. It must have been strong enough for Tommy to, out of the blue, decide that he needed to go to confession, and starting going back to mass. His absolute fear when he woke up out of the coma and could not speak. His nurse told me he was in a tremendous amount of pain. Me giving him the rosary and his absolute calm and peacefulness during the last week and a half. His asking everybody to come in separately one by one. He had also asked for and was given the last rites.
I realized then that he did indeed see his mother who had died three years before and he was letting me know that he would be going “home” with her. (He specifically used the word home and from all I read people that are close to death mention seeing a close relative and talk of going”home.” We came from God so when we die, we are actually returning home. He died that very night when he told me earlier in the afternoon that he had seen his mother and was going home with her.
I was so angry at God. Until I realized the whole series of events that happened before, he died and realized what a blessing God gave us. Tommy just didn’t die instantly in the accident with us never getting to tell him how much we loved him and how much he loved us. God gave him and us the blessing for him to be able to say good-bye to everyone and that is a blessing. He was never able to speak bc of the respirator. But at the very end, he was at peace. I realized now he did see his mother and was ready to go ”home” with her. It took a while before the whole thing sunk in and I realized what I had been taught as a child but didn’t really believe. That there is a God, that he does love us and that we all return “home” and to make it easier, God sometimes sends somebody we love to bring us back home. I changed instantly. My thoughts about life, how we treat others, what is important and what is not, and that God is real and so is everything I was taught at school.
This isn’t just a Catholic thing. You can read stories who have been brought back from almost death and they will talk about going home and that they did not want to return to their physical form, but many were told they needed to as they were not finished yet. All faiths mention this. We may all pray different or have different beliefs in how we honor God, but all experience the same experience when very close to death.
So, I hope this makes some feel a little comfort and that death is not to be feared. I have no fear of death and expect and hope that Tommy will be the one to show up to take me home when it’s my time.
In case anybody is wondering, the man whose car it was that he had less than a month he was also severely injured. He was 35, Tommy was 23. He was getting married in less than four months. His injuries were serious but not as bad as Tommy because as the car flipped over several times the steering wheel held him in place. But his jaw was also wired like Tommy, but he was not on a respirator. When he was in the ICU and his family had to tell him Tommy died, he went crazy and ripped out the metal in his jaw that they had to wire shut. They had to tie him down in the bed and keep him restrained. His parents showed up at the funeral and told me he had taken a leave from work and was seeing a psychiatrist. I told them to tell him that I did not blame him. They were both drinking and if Tommy had his car there, I am sure Tommy would have offered to drive him home. The coworkers there felt awful that they did not stop either one of them from driving home knowing both were drunk. Back in those days, you would get a fine.
So, I hope that for some of you, this brings some comfort. For me it was the worse thing in my life, and I could not believe that God was taking him since so many people had died on me when I was young and went around to different homes. I thought God owed me this, Tommy and having a regular happy life. And yet even the worst times of our life can be turned to good because this is how God works. It changed me as a person, gave me strength I did not realize a I have no fear of death anymore because I know how it works now. I read the Bible and I get it. It used to be just nonsense to me. Now, I read it and I understand it. So, I don’t think or worry much about it because I know I will be going home also and expect that Tommy will be the one to come and bring me there.
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kearnan
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Bless you for having the courage to write this out and testify of love that reaches beyond our current understanding. So accurate in your observation that how we live and how we treat others is what’s truly important, not how we differ. Thank you for the peaceful thoughts you’ve provided.
Thank you for sharing your experience! I also believe I’ll be going “home”. I haven’t a fear of death just sadness in leaving my loved ones. Thanks again for your moving story.
Anne Marie it must be great to have such faith and I sometimes envy those who do but we’re all different in that way
What a sad story though...shows how none of us can ever know how long we will live...healthy or otherwise...I’ve mentioned before on here about my sisters road accident...she was 16 yrs...It’s something you never ever get over for the rest of your life....maybe I will see her again if there’s an afterlife
Sometimes the harder life is, the stronger one's faith becomes. In the Philippines which is one of the poorest countries in the world, 95% of them are Catholics and believers. It always amazes me that those with the least on earth usually have the strongest faith in God. Going to Catholic school and being taught about God was just something I had to deal with. I didn't get it, I didn't really believe in it and being that young you don't even think about death. But as you go through life and nobody avoids hard times, that is when you start to question things. People wonder why God allows certain bad and evil things to happen in our world. That is because God gave man free will. So somebody's bad and/or evil choices affect many. It is not during the easy good times in our lives that we grow as a person, it is during the worst times in our lives, that we change from within. There is a church near where I live. On Sundays they have a special mass for those who only speak Spanish. I live in a wealthy area where many have aides and maids and babysitters that are Spanish and Mexican. They don't get paid much. But when I pass that Church on a Sunday and its the Spanish mass that is going to start or end, you see the whole families with their children all dressed to go to mass. They don't go dressed casually. They take Sunday mass very seriously and even the kids are all dressed up. When you lose somebody you love, it always leaves a big hole. I miss Tommy to this very day and think of him every day. I sometimes think maybe God took him because he knew that Tommy's injuries were so severe that he would have lived a life of pain. I was so naive then. I thought since Tommy made it three weeks, he was going to live and come home and I remember a doctor saying to me You do realize that he is still in critical and severe condition. Even if he lives, he will be this hospital for a long time and then after that he will be in a rehab hospital for many months, and will have to relearn how to walk, eat, speak, etc. As much as I miss him, I never would have wanted him to have a life of pain. I was so angry with God until I realized that in fact he gave us a blessing. He allowed Tommy to say good-bye to us.
Nobody escapes grief in this life. God doesn't even promise it. In the Bible, its reported over and over again how much Jesus loved the disciples. Yet, even after Jesus went back up again, his disciples suffered greatly. John was beheaded, Paul was in prison for years, they were beaten.....It's what you do with that grief. You can choose to let it make you bitter or you can mourn and try to honor a life that has been taken too early by making the best of your own life to honor them. That is how I thought of it after a few months.
There is actually a book I read by a Rabbi, Harold Kushner. It's called "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I seen the title and bought the book and that was over 35 years ago. This man was a Rabbi, followed the law and of course his was job to counsel people who were going through horrible losses in their lives. Then his first child was born with Progeria Syndrome (“Progeria”, or “HGPS”) is a rare, fatal genetic condition characterized by an appearance of accelerated aging in children. Its name is derived from the Greek and means “prematurely old.” It's a rare condition in which children age rapidly and usually do not make it past 13 years of age and look like old people even when they are young. Even being a rabbi, when this was brought up on, he was angry. He had been a good man, he had followed the Jewish law and he had helped many others through unbearable grief and could not believe that God had done this to this firstborn. The book makes you question that all mankind has. Why do bad things happen to good people?" This was also brought up in the story of the Book of Job (which asks the same questions). Job was a good man, praised God and did all he was expected. God says to Satan look what a fine man Job Is. The devil says Sure look at all he has, 7 children, a large farm, well to do. So God allows Satan to do what he wants to Job except take Job's life. He said take that all away from him and see if he still praises you (Its a story not a factual experience in the Bible). So little by little all Jobs' 7 children die, then his cattle die, and then he develops very painful boils all over his body that make him writhe in pain. Even his wife says to him, You still pray to God after all he has done. His friends come over and try to make him think that he has done to make God so angry. Job fights again their beliefs and sticks to his truth of God. They also think he must have done something to offend God. He refuses to believe that and states if I am willing to accept God from good, than I am also willing to accept loss from God and still praise him. In the end, he stands true to God and in the story God gives him 7 more children, restores his health and he gets twice as much back as he had before. It is just to show that if we love God, we have to accept the good and bad that comes along with life keeping our faith that God still loves us. I cannot imagine anything worse than losing a child and of course when bad things happen we blame God, but we take for granted the good in our life and accept that. It was a very helpful book for me at a time when I was very confused. It still is a best seller and you can find at any store.
I am so impressed at how well you understand the answer to the hardest question ever asked. And that is, 'Why does God let bad things happen.' He gave every single one of us the best gift of all and that is free will. He had to take such a big chance that several would use their free will to hurt others, but He didn't want any of us to come to Him and accept Him because we had no choice. His heart breaks every time anyone is hurt or in pain or having a difficult time. But if He can get even one to Choose Him on purpose with their God given free will, then there is such joy in heaven and such celebration.
I also believe in the devil that is allowed to roam the earth down here for now. He can easily find souls that are confused and inhabit them to do evil and enjoy doing evil. Satan's is know as the Great Deceiver, he can make us question God when things are going wrong and turn against him but his greatest deceit comes from people thinking that he does not exist. It makes his job that much easier to turn people from God.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful story! When my mama died at 81, after becoming bed bound and having severe dementia, we were all gathered around her bed when she just closed her eyes and stopped breathing. About a minute later, maybe two I don't know, she gasped and opened her eyes really wide for one last breath, and then she was gone. I told my sister months later how it really bothered me that I just stood there and didn't even think to give CPR when she took that final breath and opened her eyes and my sister said, "I think that was mama seeing the angels coming for her", and it rang true and I never fretted about it again. <3 Thank you Father, for sending Your Son Jesus, the Way, the Truth the Life, and the Resurrection, amen!
I am not trying to convert anybody, just to tell my story in the hope that it may bring some comfort. I read what Steve Jobs's sister said. She said it was clear he was in his dying stage. This was after he rejected the US doctor's recommendation for chemo and radiation for his pancreatic cancer and he was lucky he was told as he had the type that could be cured by the chemo and radiation. He choose to fly overseas and try different alternative methods offered overseas that did not involve chemo and radiation. After several months overseas, he started to get really ill and came back to US. By then his first option was gone as his pancreatic cancer had advanced way too much. He told his biographer (after it became clear that he was dying) that his biggest regret in life was that he did not accept the treatment that the US doctors suggested because he realized he could have had many more years of living. When he was dying at home, his family and sister were around his bed. It was clear he was dying by the way he was breathing. His sister said he looked around at each member of his family that were around his bed (he was at home). She then said he looked off to the side where there were no family members and she said he said three times, Wow, oh Wow, Wow and then he passed away. She said he clearly seen something that he was looking at and that he was enthralled by whatever it is he saw.
How beautiful and thoughtful. I wish I had your beliefs. It would be a huge relief. So terribly sorry you did not have
more time with Tommy, but happy you were able to take something positive and peace giving from this awful event in your life. I sure hope you are right. I thought for sure if there was life after death, my father would let me know he was ok. I never felt him around me. His brother said he saw his
Mother waiting for him just before he died. I truly hope he did.
I had a coworker once who said that she did not believe in God bc her father was a very smart man and he told them that if he died, he would come back to them and do something so that they would know for sure there was life after death. They got no sign so her and her sister did not believe. I said God doesn't work like that. Faith is based on believing in what you cannot see. Otherwise if you need proof, that is not complete faith in God. "For those who believe no explanation is necessary, for those who don't no explanation will suffice."
Faith is at its most beautiful when you see without believing. I believe once your father got home, he realized things that we still cannot comprehend when in this realm. So God does not let the souls do party tricks to prove to those who do not believe. Do you know where the expression Doubting Thomas came from? The apostles even when Jesus told them he would die and rise again must have had doubts. They saw him perform miracles than no other prophet before was able to do. Make the blind see, make lepers clean, make Lazarus rise from the dead. Jesus told them he would rise in three days. (He first appeared to Mary Madeline (a woman, so there:). The apostles did not really believe her and later that day as they were in the room, Jesus appeared to them after his death. Thomas (there were two of them named Thomas) did not believe when the others told him Jesus had risen and they had seen him. He said unless I see him with my own eyes and feel the holes from the nails in his hands and feet and the wound on his chest where they pierced him with a sword, I will not believe. Later, Jesus appeared again to Thomas and let him feel all the wounds and see them. Thomas then apologized to Jesus for questioning the fact that he arose. Thus, the expression Doubting Thomas. I can look at a sunset and see God. I can look at a baby and see God. God has made himself known to us in the things we see and what he has given us in this world. We can sense him. All faiths around the world believe there is something higher. We just have different ways of honoring or praising him. I don't know how people get through life without him. I do not pray to God to make my cancer not spread or that it disappears. I pray to God to give me strength to get through it. I don't try to convert anybody, but the Lord says Knock and I will open the door. I went looking after Tommy's death and found him.
Back before I actually took the time to read the bible rather than just believe what others told me about it, I also believed in returning spirits. But now I know that no spirit returns. Those in hell are bound there and won't get out until their judgement day with God to determine their justice. Those in heaven don't ever leave there because they are in such wonder in the Kingdom of God that they could not once again tolerate the evil that still exists in this world. The only one who can come back is Jesus and He won't even let His feet touch the ground until His final return (that is how we will be able to know that it really is Him and not a false Christ).
What a tragic story you have shared. It made my heart ache and yet still feel uplifted. I recently lost my mom; and my sisters and I attended a Mass of Intentions this morning to honor her life
Like you, I had become an infrequent church goer, and this morning’s service inspired me to reconnect with my Catholic Faith. My mom had been a faithful parishioner for many years, and I now feel regret that I didn’t take time to join her at morning Mass. She, by the way, was born in Brooklyn and met my dad just before he shipped off to Europe during WWII.
You don’t mention whether you married after Tommy was gone, but it sounds as if he was the love of your life. May God bless you and shine His healing light on your life. And may you continue to trust in His divine intervention.
No, I never did remarry. I knew instantly after we buried him, that I did not want to get that attached to anyone again only to lose them. I had suffered the loss of many in my childhood and at a quick rate and unexpectedly. His death affected me the most and I just didn't ever want to take the chance of caring that much for somebody again. It worked for me. I used to have dreams that I was at his funeral. I would tell him I feel that we are never going to get married, that something bad is going to happen and one of us will die before it even happens. He told me that I was morbid and that was just bc of my childhood in which people died very rapidly in my life. One day they were there, one day they were not. I understood death by the age of 6. I told him I just feared something bad would happen to one of us (although I never told him the dreams were of me at the funeral parlor for him). He told me not to think like that, it was bc of my childhood, and that the chances were one in a million and I had to stop thinking like that I also remember being at the funeral parlor and thinking to myself See Tommy, didn't I tell you. So maybe somehow God also put it in my soul but I knew we were never going to get the chance to be married. Almost, similar to Princess Di, who when walking up the aisle on her wedding day to Prince Charles, said she knew even going up the aisle for her wedding, that she was never going to be Queen.
I realize now that I am 59, that I knew Tommy for three years before we started dating and then we had dated for 3 years before the accident. He was my best friend and the only person I trusted completely. So out of my whole life, I only knew him for six years and yet it was his death that made me stop and question everything in life and what happens and why do bad things happen to do people and in the end it brought me back to God. I thank God that I had the blessing, as did Tommy's family, that he got time to get right with God, and the his family and I had time to each tell him we loved him and vice-versa and not many people get that chance so I feel that was a blessing from God.
That was a deeply painful & hopeful story Anne Marie. Very touching. Thank you for sharing your heart and life with us. I came back to my childhood Christian faith when I was 33. My life has hope in Christ now & for eternity. It is so true that the trials of this life are many. We all go through so much loss & suffering. Especially each of us as we endure not only the normal losses in life, but the very difficult roller coaster of all that comes with MBC. May God help us all! ❤️🙏❤️
Even the disciples that Jesus loved and is mentioned in the book how much he loved them, they all suffered greatly when he went back after his resurrection and they continued to go around the world to tell the world about Jesus to lead all mankind, not just the Jewish people, to God. Jesus told them they would suffer greatly bc of their belief in him. John was beheaded, Paul was jailed for years, many of them were beaten. People get on a plane and never meet the pilot or who is flying the plane, yet they get on the plane with blind faith that whoever is in the cockpit is going to fly them safely where they are going. Watch The Song of Bernadette (black and white) one of my favorite movies. A young poor farm girl with not much education seen the Blessed Virgin appear to her 13 times in a grove in which then a spring of water developed. The Virgin Mary told Bernadette who was 14 at the time that she could not promise Bernadette would be happy in this life, only in the next. Bernadette went into a covenant until she died and afterwards the church itself found her claims were true and she was made into a Saint. It's a great movie. To this day, millions of people visit Fatima in hopes of being healed.
Lovely story. Thanks for sharing. God wants to be a part of our lives. You don't need to pray. Just talk to him. He wants to hear from us. He wants us to have inner peace. Sometimes when I need to make a decision, I will ask Him and this absolute peace will come over me and I will know what is right. Other times, I will ask ,but not listen, because I didn't get the answer I wanted.. Sometimes I focus to much on me rather than giving the glory to him. It doesn't happen overnight, you have to open your heart and read his words. Start by reading a bible that is easy to understand - even a children's bible. Try just talking to him about something simple. I didn't mean to preach but my wish is for all of us to feel His love for us. Blessings, Hannah
For a long time I used to wonder how it would be possible to 'pray unceasingly' but I finally found out. When we draw close to God and make Him our constant companion, sharing absolutely everything that happens in our daily going on, we are in essence praying to Him unceasingly.
Thank you for sharing this with us. I know from experience that it cannot always be easy. I have also seen loved ones die. In 1988 my 8 year old son died from the side effects of treatment for Leukemia. He had been sick with it for 6 weeks after the diagnosis. He was such a special person, not only known from my own bias but at his funeral the line was 3 city blocks long and all of his teachers and doctors and nurses came to his funeral.
About a week before he died he had a lucid moment just long enough to tell me he wanted to go home. I said to him that he must miss his kitty a lot. But he shook his head no and said, 'not that home.' Before he had Leukemia he had Neuro Fibromatosis and that caused him to be speech handicapped already. But as a mother, I was able to more easily make out what he meant.
During the last week he was alive he gave us several scares when he would stop breathing for awhile. Finally when I was trying to figure out why he would start and stop dying, so to speak, I thought of something and asked him a question. "We know several people are praying for you but have you prayed for yourself?" He shook his head no and I told him that maybe he should. The next day he died, with his three siblings and his father and me around his bed. At one point he stopped breathing and I could tell this was likely his last. Even though he was not breathing he was looking all around the room with bright eyes. Not at us but all around and above. I thought, 'He must be seeing several angels all around his room.' Suddenly, had I no longer gotten the thought out, when he looked right into my eyes and his face lit up with the brightest smile I had every seen him smile. I took it as confirmation that there were indeed angels all around him and us. Then he closed his eyes and he was gone. I literally felt his spirit leave his body as I felt my love for him follow his spirit and not on the body he left behind. I don't know if this makes sense but anything in God's economy is usually hard to comprehend with our physical minds.
I also saw both my parents die, 3 months and 3 days apart. I was their caretaker and so I was there all throughout their illnesses. Rather than rip them out of their home, I rented mine to my daughter and moved in with my parents. By this time I had become a pastor and was becoming more aware of God's Kingdom all around us. And now I have both illnesses that took my parents. Dad had COPD and mom had breast cancer. But all that is a whole other story for another time. Just suffice it to say, I too have no fear, in spite of the two diseases that are both incurable (which will make God's healing me mean even more amazing). I am going to have the best testimony ever when both are miraculously healed. But which ever way it goes, I am fine with it. Whether in death with Jesus, my son and my parents, or life going from church to church bearing my testimony as a guest speaker. God is love and His love truly casts out all fear.
That is what I found out after the years after Tommy died. I never thought of heaven in the words "going home." But as I got older, I started reading experiences of people who were dying and those who were with the person, and the person would reference going home and then I got it. We came from above and we return there so it is "home." I am so sorry to hear about your son. I have read two books, one was by Dr. Raymond Moody who dealt with children who had died clinically but were returned to life and their stories of meeting Jesus and playing with puppies and seeing people that were related to them that they had never met before. Also, Dr. Elizabeth Kubler, a doctor who had worked with many patients who were close to death and were clinically dead and them coming back and being able to tell them everything that was said in the hospital room. They said they could seem themselves being worked on and they felt distant from it all. They knew it was their bodies and they could see who came in and out. She then started investigating people's experiences when close to death or who had come back and realized they all had the same central theme. Both books are fascinating. Especially children because they talked of things and people that they were related to that they never ever met and talked about Jesus, even when their parents had never raised them or spoke about Jesus.
I read an analogy once about life. If you took a tapestry and turned it around, you would see a mish-mash of threads. Some all different colors, some very long, some very short, and some intertwined with other threads and it would just look like a mess and not make any sense. But if you then turned the tapestry around, you would see a beautiful picture and you would then understand why in the back, it was necessary to have short and long threads, threads of different color and threads that were intertwined. So basically, we as human cannot even comprehend when God allows things to happen, but once (and that time will come from all) we see the whole picture we will understand why God has allowed things to happen as they did. That always stuck with me.
Good morning : Sister/warrior/over-comer. We have so many more blessings in life to be thankful/grateful for, that we take for granted. When a challenge comes our way some will say OMG Lord where are you???. God is never away or distant from us, but we sometimes distance our selves from God. When we read the stories in the bible where many God believers suffered trials in life, but eventually overcame by God's grace, and mercy. This is God teaching us that we will face some trials in life, but our Savior is always there to walk us through, around or over what we see as mountains. Some challenges are to bring us closer to God, and some are used to help others going through that same challenge. These are people with testimonials, and praise reports that yes glorify God to help others come to the love of God. These testimonials in life keep, and strengthen our faith journey. Sister/warrior/over-comer I too am not afraid of leaving this physical body on earth, but pray when I do God will open the Pearly Gates of heaven, and say come in my good, and faithful servant. Live, love, and laugh frequently on thisplanet earth journey. My /our cup is not half full, or half empty, but is full full overflowing with all of God's grace, and mercy. God's continued blessings . Enjoy this beautiful day that yesssssss the Lord/God spoke into existence. Amen XoXoXoXoXo
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