A Condolences Letter on the Death of a Parent

18 April 2020

Dear S&E:

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You have exemplified and lived out the gospel in constant filial devotion, love, and care of your widowed mother while she was living on this side of eternity (1 Timothy 5:8).

I grieved with you at the death of your mother. Invariably, it tugs at one’s heartstrings at this loss, especially when the end of one’s life here on earth came upon the very last of a generation. Yet He knows our weeping and sorrow. He has kept count of our tossing and put our teardrops in a bottle. Because He loves us so much, anthropomorphically, He engraved our names on the palms of His hands, and “calls His own sheep by name”. For the faithful, we are comforted, whether in life or in death, knowing the Lord cares for His people. It is a trustworthy saying then, from time immemorial, the Lord “has been our dwelling place in all generations.”

It is a fitting if not a jolting reminder, God has appointed our steps on this earth, as our “times” are in His hand (Psalm 31:15). Truly, your Christian mother has come to her “grave in ripe old age”. By no accident, she was, too, spared by the Lord the COVID-19 pandemic complications and dysphoria. Like “a sheaf gathered up in its season”, her soul is reposed now in His safekeeping.

Your mother’s passing came three days after the official beginning of spring and the subsequent Easter season this year. For by Christ, who was dead, and is alive, your mother was delivered from her second death. She lives! It truly was a special remembrance for you this Easter. Because He lives, for all the saints, sine nomine, they also live. Indeed.

Forever, your mother is enjoying His presence with no time and seasonal constraints, and no more subjugation to “famine, sword, and pestilence”, and other calamities. On the other hand, all the beauties of this earth are only shadows and shards. There is nothing on earth equals to the infinite glorious heavenly field and paradise she possesses. For the centrality of her rest, there shall be the Rose of Sharon. Its eternal fragrance will always envelop her and her heavenly abode. To this end, I rejoice with you!

Grace be with you. To him be honor and eternal dominion.

L’