“He Was Promoted”
My Dad’s father passed unexpectedly at the age of sixty-three.
He had a massive heart attack during his sleep.
It was a peaceful way to die. My
dad was only 35 years old, and I was almost eight. I have a memory of it, but mostly just remember
what my dad has said about it. My
grandfather had been a Baptist minister/farmer all of his life. He had worked hard, preached hard, and prayed
hard. I know my dad respected him even
though he had been extremely tough on my dad when he was a boy. It was during the Great Depression that my
dad grew up, and they had been tenant farmers for a dairy farm. My Dad had gotten up at 4 am since he was old
enough to help milk cows before going to school. The story is that they didn’t have shoes to
wear and wrapped burlap bags over their feet.
It was a difficult upbringing.
His father was strict and put the fear of God in my father, who was the fourth
born of the five siblings.
My grandfather, Samuel Rosco Paschal, died on Thanksgiving
Day in 1967. There was a hard freeze and
a cold wind. Snow covered the
ground. I remember my dad said how hard
it was for the grave to be dug because the earth was so frozen. I don’t remember the service, but I know my
dad’s perspective. When people offered their
condolences to my dad for the loss of his father, he would say: “Dad was
promoted”. Now why does that
particularly stand out to me from my childhood?
As a 64 -year-old myself I am reminded daily of this statement. I lost my 60-year-old husband in 2018 and
became a widow at 58. After 33 years of
marriage and three grown children, I have taken the perspective that my husband
too “was promoted”. How else can you
explain an otherwise healthy person suddenly succumbing to death at such an
early age?
I think my father always thought he would die young as
well. He is now 92 and physically he is
doing well. He had the “widow-maker”
heart attack himself in his 50’s but survived with a dozen stents now placed in
his heart. I really can’t say why some
people live to be in their 90’s while others are called home to their eternal
resting place at an early age. We are
not supposed to know. It is a plan God
has devised for good. I would like to
think that God has chosen a person’s demise because he has a higher purpose for
them, in other words “promoted”.
Promoted to a heavenly realm that we cannot see, but with faith and
hope we can accept the promotion as God’s will and move forward with that
perspective. After all, this life is but
a flicker compared to the eternal existence awaiting us.
I wholeheartedly adopt my dad’s perspective that at the end
of our lives “We are promoted”, promoted to a place of peace, rest and
unconditional love to commune with God in Heaven.
RIP Jerry Harvey (4/26/1958 – 6/25/2018)
Posted on the 6-year Anniversary of his Promotion
by: Tammy Harvey
6/13/2024
