All Saints' Day

The night Eli died I stopped being afraid of death. My baby is waiting for me, so anytime I go is fine with me. I'm also not afraid of suffering. I watched some of the most terrible suffering within our first world bubble, living in pediatric oncology and bone marrow transplant units for months. I even had my own very small dose of it when I got my central line in my chest and they gave me shots to stimulate my bone marrow to kick out more cells, and then hooked me up to machines for hours to pull the extra cells from my body. It was freaking terrible. One time Eli's doctor walked into the treatment room to see me while I was hooked up and I burst into tears. Not my proudest moment. But I was in a surprising amount of pain from the drugs, plus the stress of Eli's transplant and basically being a science experiment to try to save my kid. So yep, I cried. But I'm not afraid to suffer. I've seen so many kids do it.

Now the only thing I have left to be afraid of is awkward social situations. But death and what we call the afterlife are real parts of my life that I am living right now. They are much more real than we like to think in our first world bubble, but as a certain pastor I know is fond of reminding people, "We're all going to die. Nobody is getting out of here alive." 

The cool thing is that I know some pretty awesome dead people. I know hilarious, fun, make-you-feel-alive kids who happen to be dead. 

The other cool thing is All Saint's Day is in a few days.(Halloween actually came from All Saint's Day, but you're going to have to google that yourself.)  All Saint's Day is a day in the church (most Christian faiths and traditions) to remember people of faith who have died. Your people who have died. I have people who died. 

(The concept of "saints" is just the body of Christ, Christians. Both alive and dead. Hebrews 12 talks about being surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses". The great cloud of witnesses are the people of faith who have gone before us and led the way for us.)

So this Sunday I'm going to celebrate my dead people. I'm going to light a candle to remember each of them and to celebrate the ways in which they paved the way for us. . They've been so generous to me. I've received joy, laughter, wisdom, understanding, and most of all love from them. 

If you think about it, remember a dead person or two on Sunday.

Happy All Saint's Day, Eli, Bryant, Wyatt, Maxwell, Nick, Megan, Brendan, Matt, Jeanne, Ray, Daphne, Ransom, Albertina, Mabry Kate, Katrina, John, Kevin