Life After Death

I watched a documentary today about Mark Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon. I can still remember where I was when I heard the news on the radio. I was pregnant with my daughter, standing in the kitchen. The radio announcer was obviously holding back tears. You could hear it in his voice.

Other than being a Beatles fan, I don’t know why I’m watching this today. There’s nothing I’ve not heard before. Yet, here I sit...fascinated by the account yet again. I look at Mark Chapman and I’m angry. Angry because he robbed another generation of the melodies of my youth. John Lennon would never compose another song, sing another note, or reunite with the rest of the Fab Four for a reunion concert. With four shots, he killed a voice of my generation, and even though he has since shown some semblance of remorse, the fact that he silenced the voice of a modern-era hero makes that point moot.

This blog isn’t going where I intended it to go. I was planning on writing something else, but maybe we need to pause here for just a minute and step back in time and see what we can learn from this event today...1) No matter how big a star, eventually that star will fade. There will come a time when they will leave this world. One way or the other, there’s nothing that can be done to stop it. We are all gonna die someday.  2) Death is unexpected. It steals those we love and admire. It respects no one.  3) No matter which form death takes, those left behind are devastated. As devastating as John Lennon’s death was at that particular time in history, it pales in comparison to the times we view death up close and personal.

I’m sitting at home with a wicked sinus infection, tanked up on medication, so maybe that’s why my thoughts are turning grim. Much as I loved John Lennon’s music, and as much as I knew about John Lennon the man, I did not know him personally. And even though his death profoundly affected me to the point of tears, I never wiped his fevered brow when he had a temperature from chemotherapy. I never had late night conversations with him about life and death. I never held his hand and told  him it was going to be all right. And even though John Lennon died, I didn’t watch him take his last breath, dress him in clothes so his last journey wouldn’t have to be in a hospital gown, or kiss his head one last time. I never did those things for John Lennon. That was Yoko Ono’s job. And in watching this documentary, I feel a strange kinship with her. We are members of the same club. In totally different ways, we both watched our husbands die right before our eyes.

We humans need to realize one thing above all others...Life is short. And we have no idea how short until we go through a tragedy. When Mark Chapman shot John Lennon in front of the Dakota, he robbed us. When cancer killed my husband, it robbed me. When God gave His Son in exchange for our sin, humanity gained back that which was formerly lost. That’s the thing that gives us hope. In the midst of grief, we have hope. Hope that this life is not the end for our loved ones. Hope that one day, we will see them again. And even more than hope, knowledge that because God’s Word is pure Truth, we are assured of a reunion of epic proportions.

I have no idea of the state of John Lennon’s soul at the time of his death. That’s not my business to speculate. I am, however, hopeful. With my late husband, I don’t have to speculate. I am not only hopeful. I am assured. And in that assurance comes rest and peace. God bless.