In five months of coping with death and grief, I have learned that at times the veil is extremely thin. And on those days when I can scarcely think of taking one single step forward, he comes to me with the means and ways to tie a knot in the end of my tiny frail string of existence.
Gavin and Caroline were driving into Logan Canyon. They were headed to the cabin. Gain loves music. Gavin never ever goes anywhere without his music. Now it's nearly one in the morning and he enters Logan canyon only to find he has no music. Caroline searches. No music! He is fighting to stay awake. Caroline searches his phone for something to keep them both awake. She finds a audio book. Gavin has never had audio books on his phone. It was not just any audio book, but an audio book that has long been special to me. It is a book I have leaned on many times, in my life. It is a book I have read since the beginning of time. Remarkably they pick up where they left off, even though they couldn't remember ever seeing the book or listening to any of it what so ever! Strange and odd that they would just continue listening where they supposedly left off when they could not remember ever having listened to any of it in the first place. Non of this makes any sense since all of it goes against Gavin's nature.
The voice read:
Gavin and Caroline were driving into Logan Canyon. They were headed to the cabin. Gain loves music. Gavin never ever goes anywhere without his music. Now it's nearly one in the morning and he enters Logan canyon only to find he has no music. Caroline searches. No music! He is fighting to stay awake. Caroline searches his phone for something to keep them both awake. She finds a audio book. Gavin has never had audio books on his phone. It was not just any audio book, but an audio book that has long been special to me. It is a book I have leaned on many times, in my life. It is a book I have read since the beginning of time. Remarkably they pick up where they left off, even though they couldn't remember ever seeing the book or listening to any of it what so ever! Strange and odd that they would just continue listening where they supposedly left off when they could not remember ever having listened to any of it in the first place. Non of this makes any sense since all of it goes against Gavin's nature.
The voice read:
"We stumbled on in the darkness , over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor’s arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: “If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don’t know what is happening to us.”
That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth— that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart : The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way —an honorable way— in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”
In front of me a man stumbled and those following him fell on top of him. The guard rushed over and used his whip on them all. Thus my thoughts were interrupted for a few minutes. But soon my soul found its way back from the prisoner’s existence to another world, and I resumed talk with my loved one: I asked her questions, and she answered; she questioned me in return, and I answered. “Stop!” We had arrived at our work site. Everybody rushed into the dark hut in the hope of getting a fairly decent tool. Each prisoner got a spade or a pickaxe.
“Can’t you hurry up, you pigs?” Soon we had resumed the previous day’s positions in the ditch. The frozen ground cracked under the point of the pickaxes, and sparks flew. The men were silent, their brains numb.
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing— which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail ); but at that moment it ceased to matter. There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch the strength of my love, my thoughts, and the image of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I would still have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of her image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. “Set me like a seal upon thy heart , love is as strong as death.”
Frankl, Viktor E. (2006-06-01). Man's Search for Meaning (p. 39)
What makes this so profound are the prayers and the thoughts I had been wrestling with as they drove. They didn't know I was crying and sobbing in my bed. They didn't know I needed to feel loved beyond measure. When death comes suddenly the mind plays tricks. I needed desperately to know Glade loves me, that he has always loved me. I had been begging and worrying and pleading for answers. Our love was real, right? I didn't just imagine it.
When Gavin got to the cabin he told me all about his strange experience. His comment, "Dad is worried about you mom. He wants you to know how much he loves you. That you were and are is everything, the love of his life, even still, always and forever. He loves you so much!"
I read this every night before I try hard to fall asleep. I read it when death wakes me repetitively throughout the night, I read it when I can't stop crying, I read it while I look at Glade's picture to calm my troubled heart. I have it on my phone. it goes everywhere with me and nothing has brought me more comfort.
There is life after death! The body may cease to go on but the Spirit continues to live and thrive! Our loved ones are not as absent as we devastatingly feel. They are closer than we know. They come to us in our darkest hour and tend to our most desperate needs. They wait upon us through a thin veil and I know they are close, reaching through the portals of heaven to save us in our loneliest hours!
These words were meant for me! Glade found a way to deliver them. I needed them, I prayed for them. And the spirit testifies to me of the truth in it all.
What makes this so profound are the prayers and the thoughts I had been wrestling with as they drove. They didn't know I was crying and sobbing in my bed. They didn't know I needed to feel loved beyond measure. When death comes suddenly the mind plays tricks. I needed desperately to know Glade loves me, that he has always loved me. I had been begging and worrying and pleading for answers. Our love was real, right? I didn't just imagine it.
When Gavin got to the cabin he told me all about his strange experience. His comment, "Dad is worried about you mom. He wants you to know how much he loves you. That you were and are is everything, the love of his life, even still, always and forever. He loves you so much!"
I read this every night before I try hard to fall asleep. I read it when death wakes me repetitively throughout the night, I read it when I can't stop crying, I read it while I look at Glade's picture to calm my troubled heart. I have it on my phone. it goes everywhere with me and nothing has brought me more comfort.
There is life after death! The body may cease to go on but the Spirit continues to live and thrive! Our loved ones are not as absent as we devastatingly feel. They are closer than we know. They come to us in our darkest hour and tend to our most desperate needs. They wait upon us through a thin veil and I know they are close, reaching through the portals of heaven to save us in our loneliest hours!
These words were meant for me! Glade found a way to deliver them. I needed them, I prayed for them. And the spirit testifies to me of the truth in it all.
