The best love stories end in death; lovers do not fear death. Death is their final and complete surrender to each other. Lovers instinctively know that Love is forever and is stronger than Death. They long to die together. That is why Pat crooked her finger at me and said, “Don’t you dare even think of joining me by your own hand.”
On the 48th anniversary of our first date just a few months after she had reached the Biblical three score and ten, we were told we were dying. Yes, “we” – I fully expected we would die together. Pat knew my expectation when the next day she wrote “To Eric it was a terrible blow. Maybe he’ll never recover either.”
When our priest said a special prayer over Pat kneeling beside me at the communion rail anointing her head with oil (unction) we both felt lifted to a special place. God was somehow more truly with us at that Mass preparing us for what was to come.
The shock I felt when I found she was not sleeping but dead was also shock that I was still alive! I wanted to continue on our journey to Us and God. It was then that I realized we were still together, and Love is indeed stronger than Death. We were together at the table God had prepared before us in the presence of the great enemy Death and we feared no evil. Our United soul is truly in Heaven and we shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.
Eric C. Bow 