When I was little, I asked Grandpa what he thought of heaven. He said something like this: “Oh Lyssa, it will be beautiful with clear blue skies and sunshine, rainbows, tons of flowers of all kinds, birds in the air and butterflies too. It’s beautiful there!”

Flash forward to August 2012 and I was grieved to find my beloved Grandpa placed on hospice and approaching his own death and hopeful passing through the pearly gates.

My family surrounded him to offer comfort, but it was he that comforted us.

In those final days, Grandpa’s soul was somewhere in that thin space between heaven and earth as we witnessed him experiencing mystical visions. Those of us who were present at his bedside were blessed in those sacred moments.

Grandpa shared with us that he saw his whole past life including his childhood on the farm. He saw his own mother and then he saw his Heavenly Mother.

At one point, he indicated that there was some kind of storm and he became visibly agitated. He said the Heavenly Mother wanted us to pray.

We prayed the Hail Mary. With that short and simple – yet powerful prayer, Grandpa’s agitation ceased and he was again at peace.

We saw him reaching overhead toward the ceiling with his eyes fully closed. We asked what he was reaching for and he said “the Cross,” his palm cross grasped tightly in the other hand.

Grandpa was not a perfect man, but he (and Grandma) strove for the perfection of holiness. I can still picture them in those days with rosaries in their hands and with eyes raised to God, calling on our Lady to “pray for us sinners, now at the hour of our death.” They trusted that she would bring them straight into the arms of her son Jesus. I believe she did just that.

Grandpa left this earth on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (August 15). Catholic dogma holds that Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven upon her death (meaning she skipped purgatory ; there was no need for purification for Mary, Most Pure who was conceived without sin!)

I can’t say that Grandpa skipped purgatory. But I can say that I believe wholeheartedly that I witnessed in those days a happy and holy death. I know that God bestowed some powerful graces upon Grandpa and upon those of us who were with him in his final days. A few years later, we experienced something very similar with Grandma’s passing into eternal life.

In the years that have followed since their passing, I can’t help but meditate with great hope upon what it means to die with dignity in the light of Christ and through the intercession of Our Lady, Queen on heaven and earth, surrounded by a throng of angels and saints and with the the love of family.  

Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us!

Grandpa and Grandma, and all holy angels and saints, pray for us!