After I’m Gone

The kookaburras will cackle…
After I’m gone…

The trees will remain…
After I’m gone…

Streets that were before me… endure…
Sometimes reshaped, but the land remains…
After I’m gone…

Those much younger than me will remain…
After I’m gone…  

After I’m gone…
All that was there before me…
Will still be there…

Is there a better opportunity to motivate our living purpose than ponder a time we’re no longer here?  

The funeral I attended last week, and the one I conducted the week before, are both funerals closer to my own.  Funerals are sobering.  Many of us will attend dozens before it’s our turn in the coffin.  

Humbling, it’s only a matter of time.  Giving each moment beforehand its significance, death promises an outcome none can bargain around.  

Death itself urges us to have a philosophy, a theology, that explains — or makes meaning of — life, its purpose, the reason for our being.  

Giving reflective thought space to death feels morbid for so many of us, yet is there anything like death that would motivate us to truly live our life.  

What is it to truly live this life we’ve been given?  

If life is to come from death, how are we to redeem life from the deaths of our dearly beloved ones?  It’s a good question.  They, like us when it’s our turn, go to a place beyond the pains of this life.  A place of reckoning, believe some, including me.  A place of truth and peace, in Jesus, is what I believe.  A hope that brings us peace.  That peace brings joy beyond anxiety, to know all is well even when, on this earth, at this time, it isn’t.  

… if our hope is (and theirs was) an eternal one, a good one.  

Funerals are gloriously humbling, where we will find the essence and purposes of life.  If we see, there, what is the purpose of our lives — redemption in the realities of our relationships — we will live motivated.  

… to make amends… to set straight what presently isn’t.  

After I’m gone — after you’re gone — what will they say about me and you?  Did we live for others and for love or did we live for ourselves?  

Were we kind when we could be?  Did we endeavour upon the insight to imagine, “What is the private battle of this person before me that I know nothing about — except empathise and give compassion toward?”  

We all make mistakes.  We all miss the mark.  Have we forgiven ourselves?  Have we forgiven others?  Have we sought forgiveness for our wrongs?  

After I’m gone, will I be known as someone who sought to correct the errors of my life?  Does anything else matter this side of eternity?