NOTE: This is a fictional account, but based somewhat unloosely on future prophesied events and promised conditions, as clearly as I can imagine them unfolding and being realized. It will be interesting to compare these prognostications of mine one day to how far off I was in some of my ruminations, and possibly how close I was on certain others. It is written in first person, with Frank Calloway as the protagonist. See Chapter 1 (there’s a link to it at the bottom) for more information.
The welcoming committee then led me to the spot where my family and closest friends were awaiting my arrival. By the time we got there, I already pretty much knew what to expect, as we passed by similar gatherings on the way to mine — groups of a few dozen people or so welcoming back their loved ones from the dead. To say there was joy in the air would be a dramatic understatement. The smiles, the sound of the voices as ones long separated by death were reunited, the running together, the hugs, the tears of joy, were thrilling and exhilarating beyond measure. There were men welcoming back their wives, women welcoming back their husbands, parents welcoming back children, children welcoming back parents, siblings seeing each other again, people greeting long-lost friends, and so on.
As time goes on, the groups welcoming back the resurrected will grow in size, as there will be more of their relatives already alive, who have been brought back prior to them. Oftentimes now, it is only people of the same generation or perhaps one succeeding generation who are present, but the time will come when those resurrected will be met by several generations of their descendants, who were resurrected before them (or survived the Great Tribulation and Armageddon)
Currently, those resurrected have only been awaited by loved ones who survived them for a relatively short period of time — e.g., in my case, it was a mere six years. In the future, though, it will eventually be decades, then even centuries.
Even though many of those resurrected had been elderly when they died (for example, I was an octogenarian nearing 90), when we return it is not as decrepit geezers and codgers and coots, but with “flesh fresher than in youth” as prophesied in chapter 33 of the book of Job.
Just before we entered the part of Resurrection Park (as I later learned it was called) where my reception party was to be held, the welcoming committee informed me there was one thing I needed to know before proceeding further, namely that my parents and my siblings had not yet been resurrected. I was the first of my family.
This was both good news and not-so-good news: the bad part was that I would not see them right away; the good news was that I would eventually see them, and be among those welcoming them back. My new friends then bade me farewell, saying they would now leave me to those eagerly anticipating my arrival, pointing to the area where they had assembled.
I was not too surprised at anything the welcoming committee told me. I had expected the resurrection to generally take place in reverse-chronological order: those who died last would be resurrected first, and then those who had died prior to them would come back, generation by generation, centuries back, and finally millenniums back. In this way, I would welcome back my parents, then they would be on hand to welcome back their parents, and so on and so forth.
I had never met my great-grandparents, but I would get that chance before too long. After that, I would be introduced to my great-great-grandparents, and further back, eventually spanning dozens and scores of generations. It would be interesting to note the family resemblances and traits, and to learn the family history: where my forebears moved, when, and why. Over time — after hundreds of years of resurrections and reunions — we will know our family line all the way back to Noah, and beyond. We are all descendants of that faithful ark builder, through one of his sons (either Shem, Ham, or Japheth) and daughters-in-law. It would be driven home to us more clearly than ever before that we are all cousins. All humans are, that is. We always knew that, of course, but now we will be able to determine the exact spot in our family tree where a connection exists between us and other people we know. In other words, at some point we will discover we have a common ancestor with every friend we have. Some of our neighbors will turn out to be our third cousins twice removed, others will be seventh cousins five times removed, and so on, but we are all cousins of some degree and at some remove.
My relatives and close friends were awaiting me on and near a gazebo; they were already looking in my direction, knowing whence I would arrive, and as they saw me, several of them covered their mouth in delight, their eyes wide, while others shouted greetings and beckoned me forward. They advanced toward me as I did toward them. As we converged, I saw old friends and nephews and nieces who had been eagerly awaiting my arrival. Many of my cousins were also among the throng (those already identified as my close cousins, that is: children of my aunts and uncles).
In most cases, it seemed to me that I had seen all of them within the last few days or weeks, but to them, it had been at least six years. For me, the time had seemed as nothing, as I slept my dreamless sleep with no consciousness of the passing of time.
Warm hugs and hearty handshakes were first on the agenda. Many of my well-wishers commented on how young I looked. Most of them had never seen me at my new apparent age — except maybe in photographs, but that’s not the same. In fact, I had not seen myself yet at my new physical age. I could certainly feel the difference, though. Change can be difficult to process, but not so much when it’s an improvement, a change for the better. As we talked, the group led me to a nearby reflecting pool.
“Look in,” one of them said. I did. There I was, smiling back at myself, appearing as I had in my mid-20s. Surprisingly, perhaps, it was not jarring for me to see myself 64 years younger than my last view of myself. Actually, it seemed completely natural. In fact, it had never seemed like I was really looking at myself when I got older, in the old system, and espied my visage in the looking glass. ‘Who is that old geezer?’ I would wonder. In my mind’s eye, I had always pictured myself as being young. Seeing my reflection in the old days at an advanced age was the thing that was jarring and discombobulating, not seeing myself at my physically perfect age now. In the old system of things, there had always been a disconnect between what my brain said and the mirror’s counter-argument. Now, finally, there was reconciliation. I agreed with the creek: I am 25, yes I am! But with the wisdom of age — I am enjoying the perfect combination of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual maturity.
“What about Audra Aileen, Benjamin, Chanelle Marie, Daniel, and Emily Suzette?” I asked my nephews and nieces. “I realize I am the first of my siblings to be resurrected, having been the last of us to die, but when can we expect them back — and my parents, your grandparents?”
- To be continued tomorrow
NOTE: Obituary of a Three-Century Man, Chapter 10 contains a chart of the Jackson and Crystalina Calloway family (names and birth years).
Chapter 1 is here.
Chapter 4 is here.