The Fullness of Time?

time

This week, I want to consider what it means to experience and cultivate a sense of continued connection with people who have died. With this in mind, I invite us into a place of imagination and wondering. How might we ponder our connections with those who have gone before us — those who have loved us into being?

What if. . .

. . . those who have died before us aren’t off somewhere waiting for us?

Before moving forward with that question, I want to voice a big assumption today and recognize that it is an assumption. I choose to believe there is a something — not necessarily one concrete somewhere, but some kind of real reality — that we enter after death. Of course, I have no idea what does or doesn’t happen after death, but I am making a big assumption of what I hope: That this isn’t all there is.

So if you’d like, feel free to enter this imaginatively with me. . .

Sometimes, when loved ones transition, we find ourselves wondering if they are meeting with those who have gone before them. I think this is a beautiful reality to ponder. Recently, my grandmother Ruby Foster died, and we found ourselves thinking of her entering a reunion with her husband, Jim Foster, and her son, my father, Kim Foster. I hope that is true. I choose to imagine that with joy and gratitude.

But sometimes, in the process, we still think in terms of separation, like, “She’s with them now. But now, she’s missing us.”

But,

What if. . .

. . . those who have died before us aren’t off somewhere waiting for us?

What if we’re with them?

What if in entering that next reality, they have entered some kind of fullness of time? Sometimes, people say that God exists outside of time with no beginning or end. (By the way, I have no idea how to wrap my mind around what that means or doesn’t mean). But what if in death, we enter the life of God more fully? Or the life of time more fully? Not that we become God or timeless, but that we enter the life of God or the reality of time more fully?

Where I’m really going here is this:

When our loved ones die, what if they’re not only reunited with those who died before them, but everyone, including us?

What if, from their perspective, we’re right there with them? They take a last breath, and then, we’re in the reality on the other side also.

Obviously, I have no earthly (or beyond earthly) idea if any of this is true. But I think it’s beautiful. So I choose to imagine this when I think about those I have lost. I like to think that from their perspective, I’m right there with them. That we all are.

–Renee Roederer