As Judy was nearing her final days on Earth, we talked a lot about what heaven might be like. Part of this was to distract both of us from her pain and the heartbreaking inevitability we were facing. I think, without saying so, we both were trying to couch her departure as a grand adventure she was going on—one I couldn’t be part of for a while. Eventually, we’d rendezvous in this magical place we were doing our best to imagine. We had to make this elusive image feel real enough to give us hope, just as all our earthly hope was slipping away.
Looking back on this time now, I see a much bigger picture of those conversations. Even amidst our terrible pain and circumstances, both mine as a caregiver and hers as a loved one facing her life’s end on Earth, this was one of life’s rare liminal moments. Somehow, we knew if we could manage to be fully present to this time, as excruciating as it was, our awareness of it would beckon an amazing gift. And it did. Sometimes these moments happen organically, as ours did, and we are fortunate enough to recognize and receive them. My question is, do presence and awareness make these moments easier to recognize and receive? If more people knew of the steady supply of love, beauty, light, and joy always surrounding us, just waiting for our awareness to welcome them in, would they? Could they?
My whole purpose in asking Judy to describe the love, beauty, light, and joy of heaven was to help her visualize where she was going—to create a picture in her mind, heart, and soul. I thought if I could help her contemplate where she, her life essence, would be going when her body stopped living here, it might somehow soften this hard reality—for both of us. Our conversation was not planned or contrived. The gift we both received turned out to be one of the most cherished and lovely exchanges of our entire life together. It was a sacred moment, beyond any faith tradition.
I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. It lasted no more than ten minutes, yet it remains among my clearest and most vivid memories of Judy—and our love for each other. We had just moved her back home after five sample days at her hospice care facility. I was reading to her from one of her devotional books. Each day of life, whether in her hospital bed at home or at her hospice facility and no matter what it holds, was still a precious gift.
“Judy, what do you think heaven is?” I asked her tenderly, taking her hand in mine as I sat in a chair at her bedside.
“Love,” she whispered.
“What do you think heaven looks like?” I persisted, trying to bring this image into sharper focus.
“It looks like . . . beauty and light,” she said, a faint smile coming to her lips in a way that was achingly familiar and yet filled me with despair. “Joy is everywhere.”
“What do ‘love, beauty, light, and joy’ look like?” I asked, quietly urging her to a deeper place of thought and focus, just as she had done with so many in her role as spiritual director. I really wanted to give her a picture to cling to.
She answered by slipping her hand from mine and pointing her dainty forefinger—at me. In that single, exquisite moment we were completely connected by our never-ending love, a love which would never die, even when our earthly bodies cease to exist.
Our book It All Belongs: Love, Loss, and Learning to Live Again is a sacred journey through our experience of love lived actively and passionately, gifted and received, cherished and shared. As this sacred exchange with Judy underscores for all of us, Love, Beauty, Light, and Joy are constant elements in our lives, surrounding us in good times and even in seemingly horrible times. These never-ending constants are oblivious to faith tradition—or whether you have one. At times they burst into our awareness in a grand and glorious way; sometimes they subtly seep through the tiniest fissures in our darkness and pain to remind us of their gift, preparing a place for hope in our hearts—and our lives.
