"Greater Love has no one than this, that one lay down his life..."
In the looming clouds of its tenth anniversary soon to arrive, ‘The Truth behind the phrase “Greater Love has no one than this” is personified by a Daughter’s Final Gift’ in the second of two stories about her father’s journey of healing from the grief of her untimely death.
In another installment of how the shadows of her death were turned into the radiant light of healing, this story examines and explains the lengths which the power of love is capable of reaching out to in order to transform perspective – and in this case bring even greater healing from grief in its wake.
A Daughter’s Final Gift
“Yet the miracles of that particular day didn’t stop there – they came all the way down the mountain with me and gifted me with another. And this time it was the realization of a literal gift sprung directly from the death of my child!
Leila came to know and enjoy hearing my near life-long poetic writings, just as she also came to know and treasure the stories about my life that I constantly shared with her in verbal form. But what she especially treasured was my ability to tell those stories to her in words that always reached and touched her heart with their passion and truth.
She had also come to know of the encouragement I had been receiving from others for many years of my life to put my stories down on paper, as she herself now continued that encouragement once told of it. But I never believed I could. I didn’t believe in my stories or myself enough to take the risk of seeming foolish in the writing of them. It was obvious to her if not to me that something drastic would need to be done to get my attention centered on the potential still hidden within me.
And this was the second miracle of realization I came to on the mountain – that Leila had in her own way taken the drastic measure which would drive me beyond my own fears and inhibitions, and allow my gift of writing to be born into being through the agony of experiencing her death. It was an amazing and humbling insight that drove me to my haunches on that mountain bush trail as I fought to come to terms with the truth of it.
And yet taken to heart in this context I remembered in those illuminating moments of insight her immensely deep love for me and in those abilities she perceived within me. As far as she was concerned there were no boundaries she wasn’t willing to cross to inspire me to achieve my gift. Such was the faith of this child in her father – a faith that continually awed me with its utter commitment even as I struggled to feel worthy of it. Yet it was always Leila, and her alone, who told me continually in both written and spoken word that to her I WAS worthy!
As I shared this major miracle of understanding with Anthony he shook his own head in understanding and confirmation of its truth – and said it is often through our tragedy that we come to know our strengths. Knowing me as he has come to over the past years and knowing also of the writing which has sprung from this tragedy in my life, he encouraged me to continue exercising and using this gift in the years to come. I told him I would, just as I’ve told Leila in the sanctity of our talks that I would continue to do so.
So in the end I have come to believe in and accept her great gift to this father’s heart, life and future – a gift of love freely given in her dying, and one that her sweet birdsong voice in our conversations continues to confirm as being true. As a newly born storyteller of my life I write now in honor to her faith, her love, and a sacrifice that knew no boundaries within her sacred heart of love for her father. Because of her this truly has become a “Book of Healing Light” able to shine its revelations deep into my heart – and perhaps in the telling – also into your own”.
‘The Truth behind the phrase “Greater Love has no one than this” is personified by A Daughter’s Final Gift’ in every single word of that story, and will forever remain so in this father’s heart of being.
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