On looking back to last year, when my wife passed on, I realise how much I owe to Christian Science for showing me how gratitude dispels grief. My dear wife and I had shared so many wonderful years together, and part of what we had been learning was more of what Christianity teaches about our identity as God's child. Science and Health puts it this way: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God" (p. 475). And so we are the expression of God's infinite, spiritual qualities, which are permanent in our lives.
Overnight, the problem with the tooth disappeared.
I knew this to be true of my wife's qualities, as well as my own. With treatment from a dedicated Christian Science practitioner, I simply became grateful for this fact. The joy, laughter, and unconditional love that—among many other qualities—characterise my wife continue to grow and enrich my life now. Gratitude for this quickly dispelled my grief. Sorrow, after all, is believing that the goodness and loveliness we've shared can somehow be lost. A poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, set to music in the Christian Science Hymnal, sums this up so well: "For all of good the past hath had/Remains to make our own time glad" (No. 238).
