that world beyond bliss

Now I am holding her hand and asking, "How are you, Sweetie?  You look a lot better than you did yesterday."  We smile and I leave my lipstick kiss on her cheek.  "My mark of distinction," she says, as always.  But this time when she says she just wants to go to sleep and not wake up, I say what I know, " Yes.  And what a glorious surprise will be there for you.  Are you afraid?"

"Yes--you know, the review of your life--all that judgment."

"Oh, my dear, what judgment?  I've been there, remember?  And there is nothing but love, total acceptance."  I squeeze her hand harder and lean close.  Her blue, blue yes, almost always muted behind glasses, hold mine.  I tell her of my death experience as I have before, but now it is as if we are traveling there together.  She is seeing what I see; the light that I know will be for her--her free and running into the arms of her loved ones.  No judgment.  No echelons, only loving acceptance and that world beyond bliss, beyond joy, beyond ecstasy, a new life--childness.  Just being, without expectation by others, or herself of how to be, simply Edith of no age, no impairment, no losses, she and all she loves as their eternal essences, recognizable, welcoming, full of light.

-Emma Lou Warner Thayne, The Place of Knowing