And so she passed from death into life at 4:10 Sunday morning. And now she is in Heaven. No more sadness. No more suffering. No more heartache. No more pain.

Nothing but joy. Forever.

On a December day, thirty-one years and four months ago, my eight-months pregnant aunt was driving home from her day job as a civil servant with the Government of Canada where she worked with Indian Affairs. It was snowy. She had a little car and visibility was low. The doctor said later if she had have moved her head an inch to the right she would have avoided that truck’s plow which smashed through her windshield, sliced into her head. That inch- it wasn’t meant to be. And from that time thirty years ago- when she was just about the age I am now, she has lived the life of an invalid. Unmoving, unspeaking, unable.

Until today.

And I believe that it was a jubilant, glad morning in Heaven. She woke up to Jesus.

And she met her baby boy, Jesse for the very first time.

Over these days and months and years and decades, as a family we have questioned: why? Why this? Why her? Why such prolonged suffering? Why wasn’t there any visible sign of hope over these many years? Why?

And there are some things we just won’t know this side of eternity.

But this I know.

All her days were in His faithful hands.

Her life: significant and purposed by the One who created her.

Her life was not for nothing.

And her memory will forever serve to remind me of the fragility of life.