Not Here!
Miles out into the country, I slow and wait for the approaching car to pass before I turn into the overgrown lane on my left. The weeds have all but taken over the gravel bed. Only a short distance ahead are the gates, always locked now. It's too out of the way for loved ones to travel, I suppose. As I step out into the breeze that always seems to be present in this quiet and peaceful place, the smell of recently-mowed grass lingers. I don't come here often, myself. Just a few feet ahead of me are the double rock and small heart-shaped one. Two parents and a child: all mine.
Not Here!
"Harland D." Daddy. 66 years and 3 days. Memories rush in, tumbling over themselves as I sink into the grass and give way to the ache of missing him. I remember his stubby-fingered carpenter's hands, firm in their discipline, yet gentled by love. Even now I smile as I recall how he would lay on the couch and ask me to play the piano for him after church on Sundays. I never played very well at all, but Daddy said it was great and insisted on more (at least until the dishes were done). We never fooled Mama, but she never fussed too much about it. I've lived much longer without Daddy than with him, yet he left me the best gift of all: a roadmap, the Bible. Unerring and infallible, it never needs updating. Daddy preached about a Jesus Who had rescued him from a drunkard's life, and taught me that the Word of God is everlasting and unchanging, from generation to generation. Those who spoke with him the night before he died said he kept telling them, "Everything's all right." I had gone out of state and was doing my best to catch up with all that Mama and Daddy's teachings had, in my opinion of those days, caused me to miss out on. There was no money to get back for his funeral. But you see, Daddy had prayed...all those long days when he wondered why I didn't come to visit, he had been praying. In later years, I understood why Daddy cried when he talked about "his" Jesus, as I now relate to others how that same Jesus is now "my" Jesus and wants to be "their" Jesus, too.
Not Here!
"Oma M." Mama. 78 years, 2 months and 4 days. What a lady! Mama never left the house without looking her best, no matter how short the errand. She was a skilled seamstress and kept me in high fashion until my teens, when her health began to fail. One of our favorite things to do when I was a small child, was to go "shopping" with Mama. "Shopping" with Mama was, many times, window-shopping. She carefully studied the styles on the window mannequins and within a few days, I would have a new outfit. Even now I cry as I remember when I went to her and told her I needed a "fancy evening" dress for a performance our school glee club was giving. She fussed and fumed, but the day of the event, she unexpectedly showed up at school to pull me out early. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why until she pulled up in front of a "beauty shop". Mama had never been in one that I ever knew about, but she had them fix my long hair into "Martha Washington" curls, cascading down my back. When we got home, she fixed me a sandwich, then presented me with my new dress--a lilac dream: floor-length, lacey bodice over lilac satin with sheer lace sleeves. I had the only lilac dress in the entire ensemble. It was gorgeous, beyond my wildest expectations. Oh, Mama, did I ever tell you thanks? It was only after she was gone that I realized the uniqueness of her creations, along with her desire to present her children in their best light. She faithfully accompanied Daddy wherever he preached and led the singing in our church. Mama never had to carry me out of church for misbehavior but once: she had convincing ways. And oh, let's don't forget those cold glasses of milk and honeybutter sandwiches on hot summer days! Tears freely flow as I recall the hardest conversation I ever had with Mama. As cancer ravaged her body, she roused from her coma to ask me if I thought Heaven would be like it is described. I used the very scriptures she had taught me to reassure her as best I could. As I recited all that I could remember, she quietened, faded back into a coma and never regained consciousness in this world.
Not Here!
"Stephanie Marie". Daughter. 5 years, 363 days--buried on her sixth birthday. Born with cerebral palsy, each year this beautiful child with the warm brown eyes and flowing dark hair spent her birthday in the hospital from complications of her condition. It was almost as if she was saying, "Can I come home, now, Jesus?" For five years, the answer must have been, "Just a little while longer, Child." As that sixth birthday approached, she withdrew from this world. Her eyes set upwards and she began to move less and less. I awoke one morning, just two days prior to her sixth birthday to find her cold and nothing we did could warm her up. The doctor advised us to take her to the hospital, where, later that afternoon, the oxygen was removed from her and we bid her farewell. We had prayed and prayed that God would heal her: one doesn't get any more healed than Heaven. She, too, is at rest: never again will she have to endure cerebral palsy, blindness, seizures, endless surgeries. Just think: the first step she'll ever take will be on streets of purest gold; the first face she'll ever see will be the face of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
I regain my feet in this quiet place and steady myself for the journey home. I know I will continue to miss these loved ones, but you see, they are not here. This place contains only their earthly remains, discarded in exchange for the perfection of Heaven. Nearly two thousand years ago, loved ones went to pay their respects at the tomb of a man they had known. They found the entrance open and the tomb empty, except for the angel who declared, "He is not here."
Not Here!
"Not here!" Because that tomb was empty, I can leave this quiet place of granite markers with the assurance that I have not seen my loved ones for the last time. They are at rest, awaiting the sound of that trumpet from the eastern sky, for a homecoming day that will have no end! Bars of bone are going to have let go. All of the graves will give up their Christian dead, for their souls to be reunited with a glorified body. Then those of us which remain will be caught up to meet our Lord and Savior in the air. Oh yes, any separation between them and me is only temporary. I cannot call them back, but I can go to them if I run with patience this race that is set before me. An everlasting reunion is coming, but it won't be in a graveyard, for they are not here. My eyes search the sky as I leave this place of earthly separation: "Could it be today, Lord?"
"Not Here" Copyright © 1998 by Patricia Sikes. All Rights Reserved.
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Just Inside The Eastern Gate
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