Recently my father passed away. Despite the sadness that often attends such occasions, I found it to be a time of intense spiritual growth. It was an opportunity for me to learn more about God and the true nature of man.
When my mother and brother called to tell me of his passing, I turned to God for something to say that would comfort them. I heard myself tell them, "That's not Dad lying up there. The body is just a vehicle he used. You know how he would wave hello or goodbye to us with that friendly wave of his—well the wave was Dad, but the physical hand was not." In other words, the qualities he expressed humanly—joy, love, vivaciousness, intelligence—were manifestations of my dad's true identity as a spiritual idea. These qualities can never die. They are eternal because they come from God.
How can I say that so easily when I'm talking about losing someone as precious to me as my dad? Well, it is the result of some wonderful prayer and the study of Christian Science. Several close friends had passed on around the same time, so I had been giving this quite a bit of thought. Mrs. Eddy says in her work Pulpit and Press: "When the light of one friendship after another passes from earth to heaven, we kindle in place thereof the glow of some deathless reality. Memory, faithful to goodness, holds in her secret chambers those characters of holiest sort, bravest to endure, firmest to suffer, soonest to renounce." Pul., p. 5.
