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Growing up as a kid, you really get attached to the idea of having the people in your life with you, and that idea comforts you. It isn’t until you’re older that you understand that no one and nothing truly stays with you forever. The emotions and memories stay with you, their light, and that’s the important part.
I was thinking of my Oma (grandmother), and later my grandfather, and when they died a few years ago, I had a lot of issues dealing with the fact that they were gone. Nothing could bring them back. A while after they were gone, I stopped trying to keep it all in, and let my emotions out, let myself feel what life would be like with them gone. Their absence was a dark space where they had been.
I was going to Baha’i Sunday school then, and we were memorizing a prayer for the Departed. I memorized every sentence, and tried to understand every single word, because it seemed like the only thing that could help me understand what was happening was that prayer.
The prayer says “O my God! O Thou forgiver of sins, bestower of gifts, dispeller of afflictions! Verily, I beseech thee to forgive the sins of such as have abandoned the physical garment and have ascended to the spiritual world. O my Lord! Purify them from trespasses, dispel their sorrows, and change their darkness into light. Cause them to enter the garden of happiness, cleanse them with the most pure water, and grant them to behold Thy splendors on the loftiest mount.”
I really liked the idea that anything dark in people could be changed into light. And thinking of it in another way, even if my grandparents were gone from my life, they were light. That one line made me think my Oma and Grandpa were like stars in the sky. After that I would look at the stars, and I would tell them everything I would have told them if they were here with me.
And I know they heard me in the Garden of Happiness.