HUG Corner: Thought for the Week 7/23/18

Healing After Loss (Martha Whitmore Hickman)

When she came through the door of the children’s room she could feel his presence as strongly throughout the room as if she had opened a furnace door; the presence of his strength, of virility, of helplessness, and of pure calm.

-James Agee

People have described in many way this sense of a transformed presence at the time of or soon after death. For some it is just that – a sense of presence. Others report a conversation in which the one who has died asks for reassurance that it’s alright to go. Still, others tell of observing on the face of the dying person, an perhaps in some final utterances, what appears to be a reunion with loved ones who have gone before. 

What are we to make of these experiences? Surely they have profound and personal meanings to those present. But even for those of us who only hear about them, they are, at the very least, a hint that life moves on after death, and they offer hope that we shall be with our loved ones again.

Before the mystery of death, let us stand with open hearts and minds.