A few nights ago I had a dream about my maternal grandparents, Willard and Leolyn Fritz, both of whom are now in heaven. Of the many, many blessings I have had in my life, one of the absolute richest has been the love of godly, righteous grandparents. They were beautiful people, as you can see here in their wedding portrait from 1942.
In my dream they were sitting together on a bench and radiant in their joy at being together and greeting me and their great-grandson, Abraham Willard, whom I named after my beloved grandpa. Their appearance was the absolute best of my memory of them. This photo is the closest I could find at capturing the moment.
I have since reflected on this: their most beautiful appearance to me was the best of my memory of them from when I was a little girl rather than a more youthful version of them that objectively might be considered more beautiful. This, in turn, made me wonder if this is what it will be like heaven. If we all have shed our earthly bodies, then will I "see" each person at his or her best from my perspective - a perspective that will be unique from that of anyone else.
Perhaps C.S. Lewis considered a similar possibility when his protagonist in The Great Divorce first arrives in heaven and observes the following: ". . . I saw people coming to meet us. . . . Some were bearded but no one in that company struck me as being of any particular age. One gets glimpses, even in our country, of that which is ageless - heavy thought in the face of an infant, and frolic childhood in that of a very old man. Here it was all like that."
I can't wait to see them again.
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