I’ll See You in Heaven

“I’ll see you in a few weeks,” I told my friend Vera after a quick prayer and hug goodbye. “If not, I’ll see you in Heaven.”

Those were the last words I said to her two weeks ago as I left the health care unit of the retirement community where she lived. Now 101 years old, I had been using these same parting words for the past few years.

Two days later I received a text from Vera’s daughter informing me that Vera was in quarantine sick with Covid. I wondered if she would survive.

I thought back on our friendship which began thirty-three years earlier when I moved to Virginia.

I was walking in my new neighborhood when I came upon an older woman at her mailbox. We exchanged greetings, and a few minutes later she invited me in for tea. As we chatted, I found out that she too was a Christian. The next Sunday I began attending church with her and her husband.

Every year Vera would have my husband and me over for dinner to celebrate my birthday. With my own family being over 500 miles away, it made my birthday special.

Over thirty years apart, I never looked at Vera as a mother figure. My own Mom was still alive at the time and was my best friend. Though miles apart, I spoke with Mom almost daily. Vera and I were simply “close friends.”

Seventeen years ago Vera’s husband passed away, and she moved into a retirement community a few miles away. We continued getting together, even during Covid when I would sit outside her apartment window and have the allowed “window” visits.

Not long after Covid, Vera moved into the assisted living unit. Several weeks ago I went to visit her and discovered she had been moved once again. This time to the health care unit. Two days later I received that text that she had Covid.

Twenty-four hours after the text from Vera’s daughter, she sent me another text. This time it included a video of Vera walking with the aid of her walker and alongside one of the health care workers. She had made a miraculous turnaround in one day.

I know one of these days I’ll get a call from her daughter telling me Vera has passed away.

John 14:1-3 says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

When Vera does leave this earth, I have no doubt where she will go. I also believe she’ll be on my welcoming committee when I arrive in Heaven. And just perhaps we’ll be fortunate enough to be neighbors once again.