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I wonder if this is what dying is like, Annabelle. At first, you are so tightly connected to the world you cannot imagine letting go. In time,
you surrender to a drifting phase. What comes next, I cannot say. Some would say that you meet the Lord.
“What did you expect the Lord to look like? Don’t we always say, ‘If only we could see God, we would know he was real’? What if He has finally given us a chance to see Him? Is it still not enough?”
But as with any miracle left long enough in man’s hands, more earthly explanations arise.
The power of misery is its long shadow. It darkens everything within view.
Maybe laughter after someone dies is the way we tell ourselves that they are still alive in some way. Or that we are.
“Worry is something you create.” “Why would we create worry?” “To fill a void.” “A void of what?” “Faith.”
It takes so much to make you feel big in this world. It only takes an ocean to make you feel tiny.
“God starts things,” he said. “Man stops them.”
the stories we tell ourselves long enough become our truths.
“When someone passes, Benjamin, people always ask, ‘Why did God take them?’ A better question would be ‘Why did God give them to us?’ What did we do to deserve their love, their joy, the sweet moments we shared? Didn’t you have such moments with Annabelle?”
“Those moments are a gift. But their end is not a punishment. I am never cruel, Benjamin. I know you before you are born. I know you after you die. My plans for you are not defined by this world.
“Beginnings and endings are earthly ideas. I go on. And because I go on, you go on with me. Feeling loss is part of why you are on Earth. Through it, you appreciate the brief gift of human existence, and you learn to cherish the world I created for you. But the human form is not permanent. It was never meant to be. That gift belongs to the soul. “I know the tears you shed, Benjamin. When people l...
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I know it makes no sense, lying to the dead, or to the Lord. But we do it anyhow. Perhaps we hope that wherever they are, they will forgive us our shameful acts. No matter. In time, the truth comes out. Grief leads to anger, anger to guilt, guilt to confession.
“We all need to hold on to something, Benji,” she said. “Hold on to me.”
“This world can be a trying
place, Inspector. Sometimes you have to shed who you were to live who you are.”
In the end, there is the sea and the land and the news that happens between them. To spread that news, we tell each other stories. Sometimes the stories are about survival. And sometimes those stories, like the presence of the Lord, are hard to believe. Unless believing is what makes them true.
