Update:
would anyone mind looking this over? also i feel my last paragraph is a bit wordy and would love some help tidying it up!
All around me the church pews were packed. People practically sitting on each others laps, squashed like sardines. Looking around I could not find a dry eye or go sixty seconds without hearing a sniffle hear or there. Yet, despite the very high strung emotions coursing within the church walls I could not help but feel a sense of tranquility within the chaos. We were celebrating the life of my Uncle James, a man so deeply rooted in the lives of our family his sudden passing seemed unreal in our clouded minds.
Though my uncle is now gone, he left behind such a strong legacy in his three beautiful daughters. While they are saddened by the loss of their father, they do not cry. Instead they are at peace knowing he is sitting alongside the Lord he served so faithfully. I see them seated in front of their father's casket as strong, enduring women pouring their focus into supporting their mother in her time of great sorrow and need.
To the organized mind death is but the next great adventure, but it can be likened to a double edged sword. My uncle's death forced me to question whether I would be able to handle such a life altering experience as gracefully and as faithfully as my three cousins. Would I be able to put all my trust in a religion I know so little about? For when one is faced with pain and disappointment, they tend to doubt what to believe strongly in. Would I have such a strong belief in my faith that through the tears I would be able to smile knowing my parents are at peace? Could I accept heartache as peacefully as my cousins, persevere through the pain and not be afraid?
Life never gives you the challenges that you expect. Instead it gives you the ones that not only consume most of your energy but change you in ways you notice and in ways you do not. I don't know what it is like to lose a parent. To have my life change so drastically and suddenly that day and night become undone.
As unfamiliar as I am with death and what truly causes it, so too am I to the loss of a parent as a result of such a traumatic death. I have been blessed with parents who are in good health, and while the occasional jog wouldn't hurt, it is a sad relief knowing I have yet to experience this pain, though it is indeed inevitable. While I do not know what it is like to lose a parent and have my faith tested so at the same time, this experience has changed me profoundly. From it I have learned that while life may never give you the challenges you can expect, the power of love and faith can carry you to another place so deep within yourself that you will indeed make it.
As unfamiliar as I am with death and what truly causes it (or what change of experience it causes), so too am I to the loss of a parent as a result of such a traumatic death.
So... this essay became a matter of spirituality. You imply that you hope to be strong enough to have faith like your cousins, but the title of your essay suggests that you "don't know." So... what is the real purpose of this essay? What does it really mean?
Sometimes you have to not know first in order to eventually know. Sometimes thinking you know can prevent you from actually knowing, and it is only when someone has the doubt you have that she is able to actually know.
:-)
Let's give this essay a theme, so that it expresses a certain truth while expressing what you do not know.
Sorry for your loss! I hope you hae a flash of intuition that makes death a non-issue.
