Through the Curtain

I went to see my aunt last week. She celebrated her 102^nd birthday last August. She now lives in a home for the elderly called Pilgrims, which is appropriate for her, as although she is physically barely mobile now, she has a pilgrim’s heart.

It so happened that I was near Leicester where she and several other relatives live, so first I called in on the youngest sister, Aunt Cicely, who is merely in her eighties. We were soon joined by her older brother, Uncle Jim, and then by two of Aunt Mary’s six children, Diana and David, who are in their seventies. After a pleasant lunch in a local pub we all proceeded to the Pilgrims’ home and crowded into Aunty Mary’s little room.

So what do half a dozen elderly folk talk about? There was a lot of laughter and gentle banter. David had recently driven home in fog, missed a bend in the road and somehow managed to go over a hedge into a field. The car was a write off, but he calmly walked out and flagged down a passing car. My relatives are a tough lot. So there was some teasing about that. Aunty Mary, entirely lucid, asked after my own three sisters, remembering their names perfectly. Then there was some reminiscing about brothers and sisters, husbands and sons who have already passed on.

That was the cue for turning conversation to the future. Yes, the past contains so many memories, some painful, mostly happy, but the future is wholly bright! What will it be like to slip away and wake up with Jesus? They were excited at the prospect! Now the talk turned to death bed scenes: not macabre events full of fear and regret. Aunts Mary and Cicely were both present at my grandfather’s death, some 40 years ago, one on each side of the bed, holding his hand.  He seemed to be unconscious, but they recalled how he suddenly opened his eyes and exclaimed, “Can you hear them? Can you hear them?” Then, “I’m coming!”  and a few minutes later, he breathed his last.  What was it he could hear? What did he see?

Then last year, my cousin Richard, another ardent Christian, was dying of cancer. Shortly before he died, he asked, “Who is that man sitting over there dressed in white?” The others in the room could see no-one; the chair was empty. Soon after, Richard died. Diana remarked, “I think an angel came to escort him into Heaven.”

Aunty Mary suddenly spoke up, her voice strong and confident. “It’s so wonderful, and I still don’t understand it, I am going to be with Jesus forever, but he is already in my heart! I have found that if you walk with him and obey him, he makes you happy.” Profound truth simply expressed. When someone who has lived for 102 years says that, you listen!

I looked around the crowded little room on this bleak February day, at these ordinary aging folk, with their bright happy faces. There was so much joy in the room! I was profoundly moved, and as I hugged them all goodbye tears filled my eyes. David prayed lovingly for me, for us all, and I left so grateful for such an experience, so thankful for being part of a Christian family, thankful for the wider family which is the people of God, and above all, amazed again at the wonderful victory of Jesus, who has broken the power of death, and given us hope for eternity.