Dec 22 2015

As beautiful as this Christmas Season is, this years joy has been a bit overshadowed by my friends Pauls illness and passing. At his wake today it was so busy with everyone coming to pay their respects to Paul and his family. It was a beautiful yet heartbreaking life event to witness.

Pauls wake was not a typical event. Paul had many firefighters their supporting his family and standing on both sides of his casket as a sign of respect .

Tonight, I am sitting in my chair and just thinking, praying and meditating on what the moral of this story called life is.

Well, I will say this. A life is about choices. Pauls life was no different he too was provided the same breaks and the same opportunities and  the same  pitfalls that can happen to  us.

I sat tonight and allowed myself to think about my friend and his family from a little more of a different lens. Paul’s life here was certainly shorter than anyone would ever expect or want. One of the only things that I could say today was there is really no way to make sense of a situation. A healthy, hardworking, clean living man being taken a by cancer  about 1 year and 1/2 after after diagnosis. There really are no words that we can say. We as humans do not like to be separated from those we love. We just miss them.

I remember a number of years ago my mom lost her dad, my grandfather and she and my grandmother were devastated. My mom and grandmother  continued along the road with my dad helping my grandmother to adjust to her new identity. So, I know what they collectively went through.

Around 7 years later my wife and I lost our  2nd son Brad Michael to heart disease. My grandmother was so devastated . She kept saying  why did God take him and leave me an old women why? She was so pained by this. My grandparents were the best. She never understood that and within 6 months of my sons passing my grandmother died suddenly in her home in front of her alter statue that she prayed to God at. My mother found her and it caused my mother to become so disallusioned with life and all of the loss. It was so traumatic for her.

It took my mom a good couple of years to finally get back to herself. Her mourning  just that deep.

Later she began to say things like this….

1.)  you love big, you lose big.

That’s a very accurate statement.

ALSO:

2.)  my mom would say …

Love is selfish Dan, we never want to let go.

That also as I have learned is true too.

I know that tonight my friend Pauls family are running the emotional gauntlet and suffering this terrible loss. This horrible loss is even more compounded given the week in which it is taking place.

On one of my last visits when I saw Paul I know I have written this before I discussed with him that we do not always get the Miracle that we want and it is then that we should become the Miracle for others.

Well, today as I sat waiting to visit the family and pay my respects to my friend I sat , listened and observed what was happening around me. I then proceeded in to visit with Paul and family and again sat for a while in support of them. While sitting there again I looked at the goings on and look at Paul laying there in his dress blues and I said to myself once again that Paul was the Miracle. Everyone was touched by the person who was Paul he was a fisher of men. People wanted to be around him because he radiated joy ,light and God.

 

As I have been trying to write this blog entry this song came out of nowhere and just kept on coming back. It is a beautiful song based out of the holy bibles scripture.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

King James Version (KJV)
by Public Domain

 

So In closing , I finish off this blog writing say that tomorrow will be a beautiful day of celebration of a life well lived . There will be ceremonial tributes with the firefighters and the bagpipes brigade that he was a member of and their will be the Funeral mass where all of Heaven will be with us in that sacred church.

None of us ever fully get the whys but as the saying goes we know the who. God and God could only have said to Paul welcome home son I am very pleased with you.

God Bless Paul and family and us all too.

Danny