Saying good-bye

Saying 'good-bye' is but a formality most of the time.  Until it is not.

Sometimes, the quick 'good-bye' to a friend becomes a final good-bye when the unexpected grasps them away from us.

Sometimes, we know that the end is near, too near, and that this will be the last good-bye, the last parting until God's time reveals itself.

Sitting alongside a loved one who is about to pass from this world to the next is to receive the gift of an intentional, thought out good-bye.  Even as you are concerned for the comfort of the one who is ill, you are aware of the 'shifting of sands of time' (so to speak).  Who you were before this moment is not who you will be when the time comes and the parting is finished.  Sometimes that is good news; sometimes it is simply the way things are.  The wife becomes the widow; the son becomes the patriarch.

Elijah is about to return to his creator God.  Elisha knows it, and so he will not leave his side.  They travel from location to location, each time met by a school of prophets who tell Elisha that the time is near.  "I know," he says.  "Be silent."

Elisha stays close to his good friend, a great prophet of God and in many ways, his father in the faith, until they have arrived at the final stop, and Elisha asks for a special gift: a double measure of the Spirit that has rested on Elijah's shoulders.  We might say, "Help me be twice the man you were."  or "Make me worthy to walk in your footsteps."  It is a cry for affirmation while at the same time, a cry of acknowledgement of the breadth and depth of Elijah's ministry.

Of course, it was not Elijah's gift to give.  These gifts come only from God.  But as Elijah ascended, God gave the gift - a truly amazing inheritance. 

May our faith likewise be an inheritance to our children, to help them grow straight and strong, to show them where to turn when in trouble, and to whom to give thanks when appropriate.