For my Auntie Who Taught Me to be Brave

       My Auntie Cheryl passed away a couple days ago.  Although she had been ill for many years, her death still came suddenly and unexpectedly.  She lived in Baltimore and had been too sick to travel, so unfortunately, the last time I saw her was at my wedding, almost 8.5 years ago.  It's funny though, how clearly you can remember someone even after the passing of so many weeks, months, years... I have some memories of her that are so clear it is as if they happened yesterday.
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       Auntie had a gorgeous, warm and inviting smile.  If you've ever met my mother, then you know the smile I'm talking about - the sisters were two of a kind in this regard.  I remember watching moments between my Auntie and Uncle, where the smile on her lips juxtaposed the mischievous glint in her eyes.  My Uncle Butch has a black belt in (Judo?  Karate? I can't remember....) and would sometimes play fight with her in the living room.  She would stand there in his grip with her arm bent backward (but not to hard), her head in an arm lock (as gentle as could be), and scold my Uncle "Stop it, Butch!"  We all knew she loved it because her eyes told us a different story.  Then she'd give him a playful pinch or twist of the ear and my Uncle would be putty in her hands.  She always won their play fights, and I think that underneath his strong, muscular exterior, there weren't many occasions in life where he wasn't putty in her hands.
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       My mother told me that even as a child my Auntie was full of compassion.  She recounted "One day, on a trip to the city, Cheryl disappeared, just for a moment.  When my parents turned around, they found her curled up in the lap of a homeless man, patting his face."  This is how Cheryl was - she saw the world with her heart.  Most people aren't willing to love the unlovely, but my Aunt was.  In fact, I don't think she ever saw them as unlovely in the first place.
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       I keep a box of special things in our attic.  Mementos from important days, love notes from Judah, and unexpected cards spill over the top. Littered between these memories are handmade birthday cards from my Auntie.  As a child I thought it was genius how she would cut apart old cards, and glue them back together to make a new card.  They are so beautiful that the common eye wouldn't have been able to tell they weren't "store bought," minus the handwritten stamp on the back: This Card was Made with Love for You by Auntie Cheryl.  Now, I am the one making the cards, and I appreciate even more the time and effort it took her to make my birthday cards by hand.  A couple of weeks ago, when the doctors discovered that my Auntie didn't have much time left, we were directed to say our goodbyes.  Once I realized I wouldn't be able to travel there to see her one more time, I made her a card.  It took me a long time because I wanted it to be perfect.  I don't know if she ever got to see it, but it's okay if she didn't.  It was my way of saying goodbye.  My way of saying thank you for taking the extra time to make people feel special.  
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       My Aunt and Uncle spent years working as missionaries in Australia, and while I loved listening to both of them tell stories about their time in the bush, my Aunt's stories always got the best of my attention.  She talked about finding snakes underneath their home, and how they had spiders that were as big as her hand that would stand up on their "hind legs" and hiss when they saw you!  (It still gives me shivers to think about it.)  I'm sure she also gave testimonies of the goodness of God, of souls saved, and of acts of compassion that, today, would blow my socks off.  But as a child, all I heard was "spiders as big as my hand."  It probably should have deterred my resolve to ever journey into the mission field, but for me, it did the opposite.  I thought "Surely my Auntie is the bravest woman in the world to live with those spiders!"  I wanted to be brave like that, too.  I have since spent significant time working on the mission field, and have been blessed with opportunities to inspire others to do the same.  In this way, Aunties gift to me is a gift that will keep on giving, long after she is gone.  She helped inspire generations to be brave, and that is no small thing.
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       The day she died I thought a lot about death - the finality of our existence on earth, and the vapor thin quality of our lives.  But I mostly thought about what it was like for her to pass from this life into the next.  Because of the hope we have in Jesus Christ, I can be certain that she is in heaven, but I still wonder about the transition.  Maybe in our last moments on earth we go back to the childlike innocence we had as babies - pure, peaceful, trusting.  Maybe we see angels or perhaps loved ones who have gone before come to us, and whisper a gentle reminder that everything is going to be okay.  Maybe dying is a lot like coming up for a fantastic breath of fresh air - air that cleans us and heals us head to toe with one glorious gulp.  Maybe our soul leaves our body and travels over the earth before it soars heavenward, giving us one last chance to take in all the pieces of God's beautiful creation that we didn't have time to see  - the vastness of the desert, the glory of the mountain peaks, the pulse of the rain-forest, the solitude of the icy poles...  Or maybe Jesus Himself comes to our bedside, takes our hand, and sits with us until it's time to go.  Then we travel in His arms from here to a place where the sky is always a multicolored sunset, the leaves are always in full autumn display, and the beaches are always see-through aqua blue.  

       I'm sure my imagination isn't doing the journey justice, but one thing I know for sure - heaven is better than earth.  So my Auntie is happy, and at peace.  Maybe she is running into a flower scented wind, that gorgeous smile on her face, that glint of mischief in her eye.  Maybe, maybe, maybe...