Hi everyone. It's been six months today since my dad passed away, and I figured that today would be a good day to write a short reflection. Obviously, in the past six months, there hasn't been a day that's gone by where my family and I haven't thought about Jeff. In my line of work, I've heard people say many times that you most notice someone is gone during the little things and moments that you used to enjoy with the person. I've certainly found that to be true.

In the past six months, I watched my first Oklahoma football game without dad being there to talk about it with afterwards. I watched the 49ers in the Super Bowl. I watched Major League Baseball's opening day. I bought my first car without at least bouncing some things off of my dad regarding the vehicle I was thinking of purchasing. A couple of weeks ago, I finally brought myself to listen to old voicemails my dad had left me, just to hear his voice again.

15,462

15,462...I was blessed to have my dad in my life for 15,462 days from my birthday to the date of his death. And I cherish every single one of them. As I reflect on that number, I'm overwhelmed by our Lord's generosity. So many people have a very short amount of time with their parents. Or, have parents who were absent from their life. Or parents who were abusive. I encounter people who have suffered these wounds on a regular basis in my line of work. I'm not angry with the Lord that my dad died relatively young in life. I'm grateful that he had the time that he did with us.

March 16, 2066 will be the date in my life where I will have spent more time on this earth without my dad here than I had with him here. Should I make it there, I'll be 84 years old. That's a remarkable gift with which the Lord blessed me.

Signs from Beyond

Frequently, people will tell me of moments in their life where their loved one has seemingly reached out to them after the person has passed away, a little sign indicating that the person is alright. There's no doubt in my mind that these signs are real in many cases. But, I have yet to experience this from dad. And that's ok. I've brought this to the Lord in my prayer on many occasions, almost saying, "Others get these signs...why can't I have one?" And the answer I always receive, almost immediately, is, "Do you not trust my sacraments?" It's a reminder to me that my dad was absolved of his sins multiple times during his eight month fight with glioblastoma, I gave him the apostolic pardon the day before he died, I anointed him multiple times, and I was able to give him Holy Communion as viaticum the day before he died.

All that said, I simply have no way of knowing the state of my dad's soul when he passed away. I'm as confident as I can be that he died in a state of grace, but I can never know how disposed he was to receive the graces of the sacraments or whether or not he still had some attachment to sin when he died, in spite of the fact that I did pray the apostolic pardon with him. And so I continue to pray for his soul, and I'd kindly ask you to do the same. Until the Church formally declares my dad a saint and says definitively, "Jeff is in heaven," I will assume that he's not, that his soul is still experiencing some type of purgation and that he is in need of my prayers.

One Final Reflection

Death is a difficult thing. All of us lose people we love. It's a part of life. But, it's a constant reminder that death was never supposed to be part of the human condition. In the beginning, we were always supposed to live forever. It was only after our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that the reality of sickness and death entered the human story. We were never supposed to die! But alas, our first parents DID sin, and we are stuck with this painful reality we call death. And that's a very, very, good thing.

How can death be a good thing? Because it's an exercise of God's mercy. Yes, death is a punishment, a tragic product of the fall. But in the final analysis, it's an exercise of God's mercy. Remember back to the Garden of Eden...our first parents were never supposed to die, yet they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by so doing inserted the reality of sin into the human story. God in His infinite mercy did not want us to live eternally in a state of sin, a state of separation from Him. 

But there was another tree in the garden...the tree of life. I believe I blogged about this on here once before, but in case I didn't, or in case whoever is reading this forgot, Dr. Tim Gray has a wonderful reflection on the tree of life. After the fall, God sent a cherubim (a member of the second highest choir of angels) to guard the tree of life. Once sin entered the story, God could not let our race live forever until He dealt with the problem of sin.

But then Jesus Christ enters the scene. Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, assumes a human nature and enters into human history. Christ, the New Adam, reveals to us that Mary is the New Eve by referring to her as "woman" at the Wedding Feast in Cana in John, Chapter 2. This title, far from being anything derogatory, hearkens back to the title given to Eve all the way back in Eden, "This one shall be called woman," "the woman you put her with me...," and finally, "I will put enmity between you and woman...her seed will crush your head." Jesus Christ, through taking up the Cross, the new tree of life, destroys sin and death with which Adam had first cursed the human race by once reaching out to a tree.

But as Dr. Gray says, we mustn't forget about the other tree. We were forbidden from eating the fruit of the tree of life so as not to live forever in a state of sin...a state of separation from God. If the Cross is the new tree of life, then what is the fruit from that tree? The answer of course, is Christ Himself. "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life within you." (see John 6: 52-59) Christ gives us His Flesh and Blood to eat and drink in the Eucharist so that we might be united to Christ on earth, set free from our sinful inclinations inherited through the sin of our first parents, and then one day be united eternally with God in heaven, the paradise first promised to Adam and Eve, lost through original sin, but then restored and won in the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have every confidence that my dad is now participating in that glorious life of the blessed, or soon will be if he's in purgatory. That's what we're all striving for! That's our true homeland! This world is passing away! Whether we die early or late in life, whether our death is sudden or prolonged, whether it's painful or peaceful, none of that matters. The only thing that matters in life is making it to the Kingdom! In the final analysis, that's literally the only thing that matters...making it to heaven when we die. Within probably 100 years, every single person reading this blog will be dead. Within a few billion years (at most) this planet will be gone. Eventually, the sun will burn out and the solar system will be destroyed. The Milky Way Galaxy will eventually burn out. And someday, billions, perhaps even trillions, of years in the future, this universe will all burn out. 

But God, the Kingdom, heaven, that place that is the "really real," will remain, and it will remain eternally. Making it there is the only thing that truly matters in life!

Six months after my dad's death, I miss him every day. I think about him constantly throughout the day. But I rejoice in Christ's victory, and that my dad wanted desperately to participate in that victory. Dad, if you're in heaven, please pray that all of us can join you someday. If you're not, know that we're praying for you.