Sunday, May 23, 1999 |
I could not hush talking about the book for hours. Of course, for the first few minutes, I was speechless. Tears had begun to trickle down my cheeks before I was half through turning the beautiful pages. It was strange how the impact of the words held me frozen for an instant somewhere in past or future time. Once I regained my composure I began talking to all around me about the glorious little book, and here I am still talking about it. A young man who had witnessed my immediate reaction asked to see it. As he began to flip through the pages, I cautioned him, "That is not a book to flip through. You should savor every page, slowly." Laid out like a children's book, "The Next Place" appeals to the sense of wonder in all of us. Wonder, that is, about the after life. It deserves a slow flipping of its pages. The young man attempted to do what I suggested and then commented that it was hard to follow. He was referring to the way the words waltz across the pages of sunrises and sunsets, stars and moons, and delicate birds that beckon one to fly with them into the unknown. "Sir, have you ever lost a loved one?" I asked. "What do you mean?" he responded. "I mean, has anyone close to you, someone you cared deeply about, ever died?" I asked. "No," he said. "Then close the book, but buy it and save it until you lose someone. Only then you will be able to appreciate the pages you are holding," I said in amazement. It always amazes me when an adult of any age tells me that death has never claimed a loved one. Of course, having come from a very large family, I suppose my chances of knowing loss early on were far greater than in those families of recent decades where two kids have been the limit. It is with great clarity that I recall the first death I ever witnessed. My cousin William was nine years old when leukemia struck. I was two. The extended family (my mom was one of eleven children) had gathered at the home to support the immediate family in the last days and hours of William's life. They probably thought I was too small to know what was going on. Not so. It may have been on that day that my quest began to try to understand what follows after. It had only been twenty-four months since I had left what comes before. Maybe I was still young enough and open enough to realize they may be one and the same. In my quest to learn more about "The Next Place" I was told that some Texan who read it wrote the publisher to protest the author's attempt to contemplate the afterlife. Can you believe that? On the other hand, ordained minister Della Reese, also the star of the highly successful CBS series "Touched by an Angel," ordered copies for her congregation after she read the little book. "The Next Place" was published in 1997. At hundreds of signings around the country families and friends who have lost loved ones have thanked author and illustrator Warren Hanson for his lovely work of art. Strangely, the book is not religious at all. There is no mention of God. Thus I have found it odd that it has so captivated me and others. Odd, that is, until I remembered the words of Paul in his first chapter of the book of Romans. I was reminded that those who want to see God will seem Him in everything. Those who do not may see Him in nothing. And so I saw God on every page of "The Next Place." From "The Next Place:" I won't remember getting there. Somehow I'll just arrive. But I'll know that I belong there and I will feel much more alive than I have ever felt before. I will be absolutely free of the things I held onto that were holding onto me... ...There will be no room for darkness in that place of living light, where an ever-dawning morning pushes back the dying night. The very air will fill with brilliance,as the brightly shining sun and the moon and half a million stars are married into one... ...I will travel empty-handed. There is not a single thing I have collected in my life that I would ever want to bring except the love of those who loved me, and the warmth of those who cared. The happiness and memories and magic that we shared... Excerpted with permission from Waldman House Press, the same publisher who brought us "A Cup of Christmas Tea" a few years ago. Waldman House books are available through any book store and many gift shops.
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