Remembering Those Who've Left Shadowlands

I always knew there was no Santa Claus, but when I was about eleven, I cried, filled with unspeakable yearning for Reepicheep to be real. I loved all the Narnia Chronicles, but the ending of Dawn Treader especially filled me with longing, with its thinly veiled references to the risen Savior meeting the disciples on the beach, and its story of the gallant mouse finding the country of his dreams. So real, yet so far. Too old to allow myself to live in a fantasy world, too young to realize just how grounded in reality Lewis’ fantasy is.

My 9-year old just read the Chronicles, alone. I felt sad because I had always thought we would read them together, but he read them for school, so the best I got was a few pages with him at bedtime. But with school out, I put the brakes on the locomotive and forbad him to finish the Last Battle without me. I’m so glad I did that. We shared those last few sweet pages where the children explore Aslan’s Country and realize that the Narnia and England they knew are merely Shadowlands.

It was not until the very last page that my son realized the children had died in the train wreck, and this is why they are allowed to return to Narnia for good. I wondered how he would react. The Last Battle was never my favorite Chronicle. Too much like the Tribulation pictured in the book of Revelation. But I loved all the rest, once safely past the Calormenes and deceitful Ape. I rejoiced with Lucy in the wonder of permament residence in Narnia. My son responded differently, feeling grief for the children’s death on this side. And to me now as an adult, that feels very right as well.

On the day we finished the book, I had just learned of yet another, one of so many among friends, family, team players in the Body who have gone through the stable door by means of cancer. Thinking of this, I choked up as I read (fortunately my son never seems to mind).

No discussion of healing is complete without remembering those who have left Shadowlands.

I remember Mitch’s father who went home due to prostate cancer. A few years later, his uncle, same cause. He dances for Jesus now and no doubt teases angels with his jokes. I remember a beloved aunt, taken out at my age by breast cancer. A greatly respected church elder who entered heaven by pulling a trigger – suffering some combination of medical and spiritual oppression. I look forward to hugging him again one day. I remember aunts and uncles and friends in nursing homes, unable to defend themselves from even small indignities like having all one’s socks stolen, or explain to their families how a bruise got there. I remember the babies of loved ones, babies who never saw the light, and young children snatched away. I remember a lady who seemed so grumpy, always focused on making everyone keep silly rules. One day she privately shared her sorrow – miscarriages and a stillbirth on the mission field, the terrible burden of never giving her husband a son. Years later, she received a vision of a tall young man standing before her. The pain of her story took my breath away. She’ll only hold him when she, too, leaves Shadowlands. But she is not barren; she is a mother of children. In that I rejoice.

I remember my Grandmother, bending over to loosen her waist-length hair in the firelight. She died at 94, a good, full, sweet life, but I’m sad it ended in the hospital, her body painfully bloated. And my Grandma, whom Mom and God revived twice on her deathbed before she accepted Jesus near the last.

I’ve seen a lot of death certificates. Never has one stated “Cause of Death” as “Felt it was time to go, just fell asleep.” Always sickness. We have forgotten how to die without the aid of sickness. It was not always so. I’ve heard stories of people who knew it was time, gathered their family, said goodbye, prayed together, and then just . . . left. Death is just the stable doorway, after all, the right thing to happen in its time. It’s only some of the means of transportation that are hell-sent.

But the beautiful thing is, we have a win-win, we who have forever life. Either we receive healing to stay and fight another day, tell more people the Good News, carry on the work a little longer. Or we leave. Evicted by sickness or not, it’s still a victory once through the door.

I like to imagine Eula running through Aslan’s meadows, long hair streaming, grabbing Floyd’s hand to run with her, when he’s not at his easel, capturing the magnificent mountain scenery in pastels. Lillian and Clyde in the swinging chair on their mansion’s front porch, Victor fishing for catfish in the pond while Inez creates beautiful handiwork, freely breathing the pure air. Kerns dancing a Holy Ghost jig and Betty leaping out of her wheelchair to join him, playing her violin. Each one there makes the trip a little shorter and the destination dearer.

And soon they found themselves all walking together – and a great, bright procession it was . . . .

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. . . “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them . . . But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page: now they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

-The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Who do you remember in Aslan’s Country?