The Final Transition - My Mother-in-Law

I was in Utah with my wife and two of my children to participate in the funeral of my mother-in-law, Helen Paxman this past Monday.  She passed on Wednesday, May 2nd, in Michigan but was flown to Utah to be buried alongside her husband and my father-in-law, Richard Paxman.  She was 87 years old, full of arthritis and pain and very much in the throes of dementia.  Ann and her siblings consider her passing a great blessing; to be released from her physical and mental suffering and to be reunited with her husband whom she has missed terribly since his passing some 15 years ago.

I realize that my belief and my family’s belief in an afterlife made this transition for Helen and for us a less foreboding one.  Our faith gives us sweet comfort.  It affords us peace in the hope that our souls, our essences, our spirits, continue to exist when our hearts stop beating.  How difficult it would be for me to not have that conviction. 

Our faith allowed us to imagine her glorious reunion with her husband dead for 15 years, with her sister Marge who died a few years ago and with her two brothers who died in their youth, with her mother and father and grandparents, and with friends and others who graced her life.  Perhaps most importantly for her, she returned to be with her spiritual father whom we believe sent her to mortality to have a mortal experience—which she had for 87 years.

Nevertheless, it was hard not to be touched by seeing my mother-in-law lying in her coffin.  It was hard to not be touched by the tears of close family and extended family.  It was hard not to be touched by the words spoken and sung during the funeral service.   It was hard not to be touched by the finality of a loved one’s mortality. 

I am very appreciative of the love shown by our friends the Lunts who put us up while we met with family.  It was great to feel the love and concern expressed by extended family and friends who made the journey to Provo for the proceedings.  It was nice to be able to connect with my family.  I feel blessed that both Ann and I could take time off, to pay for expenses to get us and two of our children to Utah and back, to have been able to drive safely to and from Utah, and to have had the health to do what we did.  We were/are truly blessed.