Last week was sobering. One friend's mom died after a decade long battle with cancer. Another friend's mom who had been fighting cancer found out she has 2-3 months left. Having been through the deaths of my own parents I didn't want to say anything to them, because I knew how little words mattered. I wrote a little email to each, trying not to sound too cliche, fearing I was anyway. No words could really express my joining with them in grief.

L had been keeping us updated and asked us to pray for a miracle, to pray for a complete healing for her mom. What a bold way to pray! As I was getting her emails, I couldn't help wondering to myself - in some ways isn't complete healing found in physical death?

When my parents died, there was this part of me that could access that thought. My mom was no longer trapped in her sick, physical body. She wasn't in pain anymore. And my dad was no longer being tortured emotionally. He wasn't in pain anymore. And that part of me could feel glad for them... and perhaps a bit envious.

Even with that thought, it didn't assuage the feelings of longing, the sadness of the void their persons left behind. There's not much you can do about that other than to just let yourself feel it. Feeling it meant they meant the world to me because as their kid they made up so much of my world.

...

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. I like that in this verse there is a promise of future comfort. Not necessarily present comfort, but the hope that one day down the line comfort will come.