When We All Get to Heaven

Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday.

She passed away last September, and this is the first birthday I’m facing without her. Grief has a strange way of showing up. It lingers in quiet corners and surprises you in the middle of an ordinary day. Today, it arrived wrapped in memories.

I’ve been thinking about the reunion we’ll have one day. The homecoming promised to those who belong to Jesus. I imagine her smile. I imagine her arms around me again. I imagine the joy that waits when sorrow and separation are no more.

My mother wasn’t perfect in her faith. None of us are. She had seasons of quiet, times when the noise of life seemed louder than the voice of God. But still, she passed something lasting on to me. A sense of who Jesus is. A knowledge of His love. A deep awareness that Heaven is real. Those seeds she planted grew into a faith that now helps me stand as I grieve her.

One of the clearest memories I have is her singing gospel songs while she worked in the kitchen. Her voice filled the house with words of hope and joy, even on ordinary days. I didn’t realize it then, but those melodies rooted themselves deep in my heart. Now they come back to me in moments like this, like echoes of comfort from long ago. “What a day of rejoicing that will be…” 

She talked about Jesus when I was young. She showed me, even in her own wrestlings, that there is a Savior who doesn’t let go.

And today, as I remember her, I also look ahead. To that day when we will meet again. When the brokenness of this world will fall away, and all that remains will be love, restored and eternal.

Happy birthday, Mama. I love and miss you more than words can say. But I’ll see you again.