I would like to ask God why he just took away my dad. I need him now. I mean, damn it, I NEED him..

Hi Pam. Bless you today.

I am sorry that your father is gone. I question whether God "took" him. Nothing is more plainly taught in Scripture than that God is not responsible for sin & suffering.

Death is an intruder, an enemy that will swallowed up at the Second Coming.

oG

Hey, I would like to encourage you to keep asking God that question. Something kinda weird I've realized from my own experiences in life: eventually, He does sometimes Answer those questions in real-life ways that teach us more about Him. It's true that death will be swallowed up in the end, but Answers can come in this lifetime. Sometimes it takes months or years, but He doesn't always leave us high and dry with tears in our eyes.

Heart-breaking things have happened in my life in the past, I didn't know why, I knew God had something to do with at least allowing those things to take place... I thought He was mean for letting those things happened. But eventually, He showed me why it was so important that some of those things happened.

One question I'd like to ask you to consider: is death (the first death) always a bad thing? Is it something to be feared? Is the life of one person so tied into everyone else's lives that others can't go on without that person? And if not, then what are we all here for? My personal answer to the last question is that we all have a measure of God's Spirit within us, we all live out a part of Him in some way, and it's our choice to allow Him to live through us, to care for one another while we are still here.

But when we are gone, it's up to those who've known us to go through the grieving process, remember us with as much love as they've had for us, learn from what we've left behind, and take that knowledge and use it to better their own lives and the lives of others. I'm not saying that death is a good thing. I'm just asking if it has to be seen as a bad thing. I'm asking you to consider the idea that perhaps it's neutral and not to be feared at all costs. That maybe death is the natural end of certain choices made by people who followed their hearts, and that there can be no greater act of Living than that.

I miss my Dad too. It's been 5 years but there are times I could really use a friendly ear and good hug.

But I would have been selfish if I tried to keep him here. His heart just wore out. Now he is resting. I can deal with that.

Why did my sister get lung cancer? Why could she find jobs in unhealthy working environments? Industrial fumes in small places?

I've learned not to question certain things. Slowly I hope to arrive where He wants me to be.

Resting, eh? I could handle that little meaningful word a lot better if my dad was buried somewhere.

But my mom decided on cremation. Someone on this forum told me that cremation only involves temperatures so high that fire/flames aren't even a part of it - that the body just disintegrates. That was a bunch of bull.

I watched a video online that showed an actual cremation.

They put the body in a wooden casket or box. The whole thing is slid as if like a pizza into an oven. It is not done carefully. Then the temperature is turned way up. THERE IS FIRE AND FLAMES. The box catches on fire, burns down, and the body is then exposed to the fire. It melts then burns with fire....it does not disintegrate, as I had been told. The body does NOT burn into ashes and/or dust. Pieces of "leftover" bone are put through a grinder to produce sand-like grains.

Oh yeah...I forgot.....before the cremation is even started, if the person had any surgery involving metal implants, such as bilateral hip replacements or pacemakers, or any kind of metal, the body is sliced open and the metal is *removed*...

And that, my friend, is the image I now have of how my Dad was treated at the end.

Pam I am not trying to minimize the horror you feel at the way your father's body was treated.

Many people are subject to postmortem examination - which is often not with the will of the family, but legally enforced if the death is unexplained or violent. I do not feel that it is a violation of the body. Others permit the removal of organs to help those lacking heart, lungs, cataracts.....does that thought fill you with horror as well?

In the longer term, all bodies will revert to the elements - to me it does not matter how that is achieved.

I am not sure if these thoughts would be helpful for you. I do think that the fact that you are expressing what you are feeling is a good thing, we can only deal with what we acknowledge.

Please do not think I am trying to be a condescending professional with these words, I am just trying to express how I have worked through these things in my own mind.

Autopsies are different. There's a reason for them.

I understand about organ donation. I worked for one of the first Renal Transplant Departments. Surgeries done on the cadaver donors are painstakingly done. They don't go in and rip out a donor's heart, lungs, kidneys, etc. So no.....those procedures do not fill me with horror.


I am just having an extremely hard time with my dad's death.

Yes Pam, I realise that. Intellectual arguments are pretty ineffective in the face of grief - I was just trying to offer something from the way I have tried to work through such issues for myself. But in the final analysis we each have to walk in our own mocassins, and sometimes the way is rough and very lonely.

I know...actually you probably said what my dad woulda told me. He was a pretty smart cookie too.

Music & lyrics: You'll Never Walk Alone