The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Thinking about the long road ahead makes me sad. That's natural, isn't it, Messire, even when you know that happiness awaits you at the end of the road?

As a Christian, I view life as a journey, one that tests us and challenges our spirit. In enduring and passing these tests, I believe that our souls grow in preparation of the better world that awaits us on the other side. Then, when we've learned all that we were sent here to learn, it's time to pass over that invisible dividing line between the earthly and the unearthly. That's my theory anyway.

But despite my firm belief in an afterlife, I still struggle with the idea that God gives us people to love only to one day snatch them away from us. Thankfully for most of us, life is a long road, and if we're fortunate, it's full of joyous moments that fill our souls to overflowing. And yet each time that cruel act of separation strikes us, that road ahead looks long and sad indeed...at times almost unbearable to traverse in the absence of yet another travel partner.

I trust that what awaits me at the end of that road is a happiness the likes of which I can't possibly imagine in my mortal form, and so I plod onward. But without those I love by my side, my steps slow...if only momentarily. They say that time is irrelevant in the afterworld...that those who've passed on barely notice our absence, so quickly does it seem to them that we're with them again. How gracious of God to grant them that grace. I guess therein lies the justice in death.

Right now, my road ahead is looking pretty sad, but I suppose that is indeed very natural. After all, no one ever said that this lesson we call life would be an easy one, nor should it be. Until I reach that unbridled happiness at the end, I must remind myself that while they're no longer with me in a physical sense, the loved ones I've lost nonetheless accompany me each step closer I inch toward them. And when at last we meet again, every second of heartache will be vindicated for all eternity.