He's Home

I just finished reading, very unexpectedly, the obituary of a young man I was well acquainted with while he was a teenager.  I watched him develop into an amazing adult with a passion for helping people and for having great fun, both in a great many ways. Cancer had been hiding out in Ron's body and only found when it was medically too late. 

I've had my own memorial service for him by reading the blogging he and his wife did on his Caring Bridge site, plus the messages left by many of the lives he touched.  I only had to quit reading when I could no longer see through my tears.  I had to ask myself, were they tears of sorrow or of joy?  After the death of Karine (my daughter, at age 34) I told many people that she had a whole lifetime of experiences in only half the time we would have expected her to live.  I would have to say the same of Ron.  What an incredible amount of accomplishments he had in his 52 years!

In his latest vocation as a minister, he gave one of his last messages on the subject of heaven.  He knew he was headed there soon, and he reminded people that, for him, Heaven was "home".  So often when we travel somewhere, the road home seems longer than when we went in the opposite direction.  In reading about Ron, I could say  "He made it already!"  I was also able to say "Karine is there already!"

We would need the mind of God to know why some of us have to hang around earth keeping busy while others are taken in the middle of what seems to be an even busier life. One thing I do know, however, is that because we are still here, God means for us to keep busy accomplishing something, not just keep busy keeping busy.  One of my daughter's last requests of me was "You'll have to finish it for me, Mom".  My heart is heavy with that today thinking of both Karine and Ron as well as so many others who have left us.  What an empty space they have left; what a long to-do list there still is in this world!  Until we also go Home, there is work to be done.