When I turned on the computer, intending to do a lot of school-work, the first email I read was my cousin’s message that my beloved aunt, Elizabeth (Betty) Congdon, left this world yesterday afternoon. The second I read was Marcia Gould’s message about the Bible verse where she swims.
I had one of those proverbial “Ah Ha” moments. It occurred to me that God calls us home, each in our time, because he loves each of us personally. He does not want us to suffer: he calls us home as painlessly as he can. Unlike her father, who had severe Alzheimer’s for years, Aunt Betty had only recently started to exhibit the loss of interest in activities and severe memory loss that marks the onset of that dread disease. Her passing was quick and not painful to her, although her children and my brother and I feel the loss keenly. For that, I am very grateful. I know the fear of what the future holds because my mother’s family has dementia in it. I am grateful to God that Aunt Betty could be called home before that horrible disease took full grip of her.
Lent is a time when we reflect on the yearly remembrance that Christ was crucified, died, buried, and rose again to release us from sin, and promise us eternal life. We grieve because we miss the love and presence of our dear one ourselves. We do not grieve because they have gone into the presence of God.
I ask for prayers, not for aunt Betty’s soul because she is with God, but for her two children (Joy and Nathan), her nephew Eli and for my brother and I as we all adjust to life without her.
Submitted by Eleanor Congdon