Taking Wing to Heaven

If I could, I’d tie to me a thousand birds and fly,

Above the highest mountain tops, on past the clouds and sky;

I’d soar beyond the earth and stars, and land where angels play,

Just to hold you close once more—oh surely there’s a way.

A Dream to Remember

Some say that dreams are a way in which we become connected with the spirit world. Often we dream of things such as deceased relatives or long lost friends and find ourselves pondering the significance of what appears to be an inexplainable phenomena. Are these people simply just on our mind? Is this an evocation of subconscious thought? Is this all just explainable by an understanding of basic biological and neuroscientific properties of the brain? … or could it just be that some things in life are just meant to go unanswered?

I remember the dream as if it were a part of my everyday reality. It was a beautiful spring day. The great yellow sun sat in the sky bathing the earth in its radiance. A soft breeze gently rolled across the air, providing a pleasing compliment to the mildly warm temperature and the pastel blue horizon. The door to my grandmother’s kitchen was open, and I remember standing at the edge of the kitchen table by the doorway admiring the beautiful weather. I remember at one point taking the time to notice a pair of my grandfather’s old Italian leather boots out on the porch—he always used to wear them. But I often found myself back at the corner of that kitchen table standing there by the open doorway. It would seem as though I was meant to be there for a reason: to see my grandfather. Like an angel emerging from the light of Heaven, I remember he made his entrance from the brightness of the day and walked into the house. It was a comforting feeling seeing him standing there, he looked the same way he did nearly ten years ago before his passing. I knew inside me he had been dead, but I knew that what I was seeing was real, he was there alive and in the flesh. I don’t remember exchanging words with him, I just know that I was happy and I remember living out the rest of the day with him and my other family members with those feelings smiling inside me. And then like the blink of an eye, I was awake.

April 5, 2011 will mark the ten year anniversary of my grandfather’s death. I haven’t found myself thinking about him too much lately, and the last time I dreamt of him was after his death several years ago. Some may search for a perfectly rational, scientific answer to what I experienced, but I have reason to believe that my dream happened because it was meant to be. I believe my grandfather was there in my dream, that he was real, but I still ask myself why is it that he decided to show up now? Did he want to tell me something, to prepare me for some future happening, to comfort me?Or maybe he simply wanted to say hello and let me know that he is always watching over me? Perhaps I will never know the true answer, but I do know that the time I spent with my grandfather then and there inside my dream was precious time, and a moment I will never forget.

Until we meet again, Pop Pop, rest peacefully.

Aunt Vada's Eulogy

Vada Miller. Words can only begin to describe that remarkable woman we call our Mother, our Sister, our Grandmother, our Aunt, our Cousin, and our Friend. A true southern bell with old-school values, and a noteworthy seamstress with a knack for exceptional cooking and baking. A sassy sophisticated woman with an eye for fashion, Vada always wore her Sunday finest day-in and day-out complete with elegant jewelry, polished makeup, and an up to date cut and color. She always looked immaculate wherever she went, and that is perhaps one of the most noteworthy recollections people seem to make of her today aside from memories of her cornucopia of confectionary creations. I never will forget her seven-layer cake with homemade chocolate frosting, something I looked forward to whenever I knew she was making it and that the family and I famously dubbed the “Vada Cake.” As we look back on her life, we remember Vada as a woman with a great sense of pride, pride in her work and pride in her family. She valued her family above all things and always stressed the importance of working hard and pursuing an education as paramount to succeeding in life. Now as we come together in congregation to this church today, let us not mourn the death of Vada, let us not shed tears of sadness, but rather let us celebrate the life of an extraordinary hard working woman who devoted herself to serving her friends and family. We must make realization that she is now in a better place, a place without worry, without aging, without sickness, without death. A place where she can forever bathe in the glory of the Lord and the love of her friends and family who have for so long anticipated their reunion with her, for this is not an end but rather another beginning. We must accept life as it is, to cherish the beautiful memories we’ve shared, and understand that we will all be together once again some time from now. Until that day, Vada will be forever busy baking cakes for the angels. May she forever rest in peace.