by Haven Bradford Gow
I remember one autumn day when I was just five years old, I was walking to school and kept feeling tremendous awe, reverence and gratitude for the beautiful leaves which had fallen to the ground, the lovely blue sky and sun shining at me, and my loving parents and elderly aunt. I thought: who else but a great and loving being-a God, a Supreme Being-could have given me such love and spiritual beauty?
When spring came, I once again asked myself the same question as I walked to my parents’ restaurant after school amid the budding leaves and flowers, the beautiful sky and sun, and the harmonious and melodious singing of birds. Could all these beautiful things have come about through chance, accident and evolution?
A few years ago I discerned another glimpse of God’s love and what heaven must be like as I watched my father die a noble and courageous death from cancer. My father purposely came home from the hospital that particular day, just so he could prove to me how much he loved me as he was dying his agonizingly painful death from a cancer which had spread throughout his body.
Fearing that he would die in a dreary hospital room without having had the opportunity to say good-bye to me, my father ordered the doctor and nurses to permit him to accompany me home, despite the fact that he would have to endure excruciating pain. As I was driving him home, I kept looking at him in the rear-view mirror and thinking about how noble and courageous my father was and how precious was each second that he remained alive.
In his own bed, and with me by his side, my father died with peace of mind and soul; he understood that one must not only live nobly but die nobly as well.
I thanked God for inspiring and giving my father the strength and nobility and generosity of mind, spirit and character to show me his selfless love. And then I experienced a flash of insight: my father’s love was a reflection of God’s love for me. God made my father for eternity. And when it is time for me to go, God will reunite me with my father.