a tribute to Faith Nancy, aka Sweetie, gone too soon

Death and grief are little things. They are transient. Life must be before death and joy before grief, else there are no such things as death or grief. These are only negatives, life is positive. Death is only the absence of life, just as night is the absence of day, and if this is so, there is no such thing as death. 

Frank Norris - The Octopus: A Story of California

I don't know exactly who that Frank fella is, I'd like to know where he was coming from when he said those things, if he was just speaking theory or if he really did know true grief, that caused by the loss of someone close. An old school mate, Faith Nancy, passed away on Saturday in a car accident, they lay her to rest on Friday. Death is not something I have met often, thank God, but every time it comes around I find myself asking the very basic questions.

In a copy of True Love, about three years ago I read Carole Mandi's story. She was the then editor of True Love, now she's a publisher of that group of magazines: True Love, Adam and a few others i don't know. So anyway, Carole's daughter died when she was five, after some long complicated illness, I even remember her name, Misuka (and was she pretty!!!). I still remember Carole's words as she spoke of her, "A mother should never have to bury her child". If ever there was a scale of pain, I think this ranks way up there. And I don't think it matters how old they were, even if they were just a few months old, even if it was a miscarriage. One of my aunts lost her daughter when she was three years old, more than thirty years ago, and even to-date, whenever she speaks of her she says that not a day goes by that she does not think of her daughter: how old she'd be now, what she'd be like, who she'd be married to... No mother should ever have to bury their daughter.

As I think of Sweetie, I feel sad, for her mother greater than anyone else. I love how Mary Morand 'Sofine', puts it in her Motherhood - It will change your life. See, I have known the Lord, I know that God is love, and that in all things He is working for our good, everything He does is driven by His love. It doesn't make processing this any easier. She had a two year old chubby angel called Lasoi, and Faith's passing is supposed to be for her good. It's for her mother's good as well... I really want to question, I really want to ask why, I really want to know how it could possibly be for Lasoi's good, this her mum's passing. Frank Norris isn't helping. And if I feel this way, how must her mother feel? How will Lasoi feel when she's old enough to understand?

We make all our plans as though we hold the future, can we do anything but? But when all out of nowhere death calls, when the Lord calls home someone we thought would live forever, what does that say about our mortality?

...and you learn to build all your roads on today,

Because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight

...and you learn that you really can endure-

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

and you learn and learn...

With every goodbye you learn.

Veronica Shoffstall - After a While

Farewell Sweetie, I believe there is a plan bigger than all of us. I don't know the plan, but I do know the Planner, and I may not understand His ways, but I trust Him to do the best for all of us. I trust the love that He commended toward us, Christ dying for us while we were yet sinners. In His time, He shall cause all these things to be beautiful...

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom

Psalms 90:12