I presume there is a plan...

October 27th may be a very hard day.

It would have been my brother Paul's birthday, his 45th, but its been changed into just another painful milestone as we ponder his death and our loss.

I was in my car driving home when I heard that he had died. I had planned to go home, get the keys to St. George Church, and spend some time there in prayer for him (I only knew at the time that there had been an incident and the paramedics were with him). But time had run out. When I called from my car to check on things and all my mother could say was "Paul is with the Lord, and I need to be with his wife..." Then everything faded to black.

Since that time I have been mostly numb, focused on doing the right thing and helping where I could. There are moments, of course, but the whole thing still seems like an illusion. This Friday will remind us all, again, that it isn't so and nothing will be the same again.

And I will light a candle somewhere for him and for me. For Paul it's a sign of the light of Christ which never fades and a kind of existence we can only imagine, a freedom and rest from the struggle that marks this broken world. For me it is a light of hope, that somehow, somewhere this all makes some kind of sense.

I presume there is a plan to this all, that somehow in the eternal scheme of things this must happen and that its effects, so terrible and painful for us, are even now working out some greater but invisible good. But as to the specifics I remain totally and utterly without a clue and probably will for the rest of my life. There's not much I can do about that as I am me and God is God and there are things I will only know when I myself follow my brother.

Until then a candle will have to do.