Many people think that a life with God is the same as a life without God, particularly those who do not believe in God or those who think that, regardless of who your God is, they are all the same. Of course, there may be exceptions to this, but I am speaking in general terms.
In the time of my grandmother, it was common for families to have six to ten children or even more. In those times, they often lost several children along the way because of the lack of medical resources that we have nowadays.
My great-grandmother lost her mother and brother to typhus during the time of the Mexican Revolution. A revolutionary general also kidnapped her teenage sister. As a consequence, my great-grandmother, at only nine years old, had to help her father take care of her younger siblings. This forced her to mature very quickly.
When she got married, my great-grandmother had four children. Two died as children from illness, and another died as a teenager after suffering from cerebral palsy from birth. Only my grandmother survived.
As a result, I grew up believing for a long time that my grandmother had been an only child. Later, I learned that she had other siblings who had passed away. Both my great-grandmother and my grandmother had to endure the persecution of Catholics during the Cristero War, and my grandmother had to be baptized in secret.
My grandfather, her husband, on the other hand, lost his father as a child and was placed with his aunts while his mother went out to work. Later, his mother remarried, but her new husband did not want my grandfather and his brother to live with them, so my grandfather remained with his aunts.
He worked from a young age to survive, and unfortunately, his brother was shot to death. My grandmother and grandfather eventually got married and had one of the most loving and ideal marriages I have ever known, despite everything they had been through.
They also had six healthy children who, so far, have had good lives. The marriage and love of my grandparents were an example of the kind of family we should aspire to have.
The vast majority of the above sounds like tragedy, right? Yet they went on to have successful lives. Life was hard—much harder than it is for most of us today—and we often do not realize how well we are doing compared with people in the past.
When these issues were discussed in my family, they were discussed naturally. You could not see the suffering on their faces or great sadness, much less did they victimize themselves. It was simply part of life, and you had to move forward.
I never heard the word “depression” among them. Nobody ended up an alcoholic or a drug addict, and nobody lost their mind despite the difficult trials they experienced.
My very healthy grandmother lived until she was 78 years old. She was run over at the door of her house by a drunk taxi driver who hit a speed bump. As a consequence, she suffered a fractured skull, ribs, and pelvis.
She lived for approximately 15 more days in agony and pain, obviously with medication to alleviate her symptoms. She was always very calm despite the severity of her injuries, surgeries, and pain.
There are patients who become very restless and aggressive in such circumstances, and families who become extremely desperate. Not so with her or with my family, simply because we have faith. My family forgave the taxi driver.
My father could not say goodbye to my grandmother when she passed away. In the same way when my grandfather passed away I was a teenager and I couldn’t say goodbye to him. Neither my father nor I, saw these situations as a tragedy. It was just like that and there are times in life when you just can’t say goodbye, that’s how it happens and it’s nobody’s fault.
My father could not say goodbye to my grandmother when she passed away. Similarly, when my grandfather passed away, I could not say goodbye to him. Neither my father nor I saw these situations as tragedies.
It was simply how things happened. There are times in life when you just cannot say goodbye. That is how life is, and it is nobody’s fault. My grandmother came to my father in a dream to say goodbye to him and tell him that she was fine and that he had nothing to worry about.
When we look back on everything they went through, it seems as if the pain experienced by our ancestors was more organic. They seemed to understand much more easily that death, pain, and suffering are part of life and that we are all going to experience them at some point.
They seemed to face difficulties more easily and overcome grief in a much healthier way, without becoming bitter or blaming God for their difficulties. Obviously, this does not mean that they had hearts of stone. Rather, they seemed to be better at accepting and assimilating the things they could not change.
A constant that I see in our ancestors, or at least in my family, is that they were people of faith. My grandmother knew that she would die approximately two years in advance, thanks to the fact that she prayed the Rosary daily. Because of this, she made sure that she was prepared for her death.
Today’s society is about ending suffering at all costs, as if suffering were the worst thing that could happen to us. We often fail to realize that suffering is part of life itself and that we are all going to experience it in one way or another, sooner or later, because it is simply inevitable.
It is our job to take care of ourselves and do our best to stay healthy, and try to save lives as much as possible. However there is nothing wrong with dying since we all are going to go trough it.
It is our responsibility to take care of ourselves, do our best to stay healthy, and try to save lives whenever possible. However, there is nothing wrong with dying, since we are all going to die.
People who do not have a firm faith tend to be afraid of death and may even experience negative emotions such as despair, hopelessness, and desperation instead of accepting death and being spiritually prepared for it.
I consider the moment of our death to be the most important moment of our lives because it is at that moment that we will come to know God face-to-face, when we go to the Father’s house.
Obviously, this does not mean that we should not live life to the fullest, with an optimistic outlook and by enjoying every moment.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I saw people fall into panic. It did not matter how much you tried to calm them with faith, science, or statistics; no human power seemed capable of getting them out of their panic.
My point is that we need to accept that we are not immortal in this life or in this world. Thankfully, at the same time, we are eternal because God created us for eternal life and opened the doors to salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice.
The Christian knows that suffering has a meaning, that it is not in vain. It can be a form of purification, a way of making reparation for our sins or for the sins of others. We can offer our suffering for the conversion of souls, to avoid or reduce our time in purgatory, or as an act of redemption.
Christians generally have greater peace and less hopelessness when facing the difficulties of life because we see things from a different perspective. We understand that suffering, death, and difficulties are not the end of the story. They are part of our journey toward God and eternal life.
This is why I believe it is not the same to live with God as to live without Him. Faith does not necessarily remove suffering from our lives, but it changes how we understand it, how we endure it, and ultimately how we face death. It gives suffering a purpose, death a destination, and life a meaning beyond this world.