Disclaimer:
This is a work of fan-fiction. The here fore used
characters belong rightfully to MGM/UA and I just borrowed them. The only
profit I hope to achieve with this is the pure pleasure of the reader, so no
copyright infringement intended. Please do not sue me, I don’t have money and
won’t be getting some from this story.
Author’s
notes: The story takes place some time after the final episode of the show
“The Beast within” and after destruction of the mansion on
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Not
the end
by
Belladonna
“In times of grief and
mourning, in those times of pain and loss are we so full of tears that we
cannot see what we have in our hearts. And because of all that pain we forget
that death has not always to be an end; but for the soul, that will live on
forever, it can also be a beginning.”
It was a silent day, the skies had cleared up after for some days everything had seemed grey and dark and rain had been lying over the city. A couple of birds sat in the trees of the park and were singing happily, they were all carefree and knew nothing about all the things that happened in the world of the humans around them. They knew nothing about all the happiness but also the tragedies the people around them had to face in their lives. For these birds in the trees all their lives only centred on the facts that they were born, had to lay eggs and that way would reproduce themselves and some day would die. For them nothing else mattered than to live, to survive and to die one day; nothing more.
But maybe they were not that much different from humans in that than they would imagine it to be; maybe there wasn’t that much that separated their lives from those humans lived for they also were born only to die one day after they had lived.
Some did this earlier, others later and some even without ever truly have lived, but in every single case it hit them just like it would these birds, who were sitting there in the trees and singing, unknowing and innocent, absolutely unprepared and unexpected.
May it be that it concerned themselves or someone close to them, in the end death took them away from them, without that they were able to do anything against it.
The church was empty, the one that rose behind the trees that were growing in the park. Its stones were grey and brown and a bit weather-beaten but the church had stood there on the same place it still did even as the people who were walking by it in the park hadn’t been born yet and it still would be standing there once they would be gone forever one day, just like the faith that was represented through it and had its home there in the house of the Lord. It was a faith and a belief of a life that would last forever and remain on this place and this house for a long time, even after all these people would be gone for a long time.
Inside the church there was nobody left, it was empty except for the lone priest who was standing in front of the altar and was silently praying. The believers who had come there this day to pray inside the church, to confess and repent or to simply sit there, they all had gone quite a while ago and had left the church, only the priest had remained there.
He stood there at the altar and had folded his hands, deeply sunk into his prayers. His light brown hair was short, but loose strands kept falling into his forehead, right above his sad eyes. He wore the classic black garb of a catholic priest, black in front of which the white collar was standing out so shiningly.
Father Phillip Callaghan was a man of God, a man of the church and his beliefs; he always had been following his faith and what it had told him and he always he had given in to the call of his heart wherever it had lead him, be it as a member of the church or of the Legacy.
He knew exactly what had happened since he had no longer been a member of the team of the San Francisco House, he always had been following the actions that had concerned them and he knew very well what had happened in that special night on the island. And even though he still did not believe it even after so long; he understood why it had happened, that Derek also had had to follow his beliefs and had to do what he thought to be the only way.
Phillip was deep into his thoughts, deep into his prayers and memories of the one man, he had known so well and for a long time, the one man whose loss he never expected, at least not that soon.
But this was something, that Phillip also had had to come to realize very painfully, something that never struck expected, no matter what the circumstances might be.
~/~
The Lord is mighty and merciful, He gives His grace to all those who turn towards Him in their time of need and also He gives it to those who have turned away from him. He looks over all of us, watches us from heavens above and he has stretched out His arms around us so full of mercy and love and that openly and full of love he embraces us and takes us for what we are.
Only through His mercy we exist for He has created us and only through this grace we are being born, do we live.
But as merciful the Lord might be, as cruel he can also be, for from this life, He has given us and we are only allowed to live because of His grace, from this life He takes us away and there is nothing we can do against it. As much as we might struggle against it or fight when the time has come He has decided and limited for us, He calls us towards Him again or those who are close to us.
All that is left for us is the pain of loss, the tears of those people who are left behind and their fury, their anger about that what has been taken from them, what has been so close within their hearts.
I have seen those people often in my life as a priest or outside my work for the church; often have I stood with them and offered them comfort and the consolation that the faith in Him can offer them. So many times have I prayed with them and listened to them in their time of grief, have I talked to them in these times and told them that for all these things, that happened and also all the losses that we have to endure in our lives, for all these things there are reasons. Nothing happens without a reason in our lives the Lord has destined us to live, as much as we want to search for these reason in some moments, especially in these times of loss. As hard as we are trying to seek the sense in all this, the sense in the whole, so full are we of tears and are not able to recognize it.
In all our pain, all the sorrow and mourning we should never forget that what we had and we should not only mourn this loss but instead choose to celebrate the life we were allowed to live, with these people that death had taken away from us. We should celebrate and honour the memories that we connect with these loved people, someone who had been very close to us and our hearts. In these times of mourning we should think back to all the times we’d had together and remember them well, for the body may have died, it is the spirit of a person, the soul which ascends to heaven and that there will be greeted with open arms and embraced there by the Lord, embraced into a new life. It is this undying soul of the people who have been close to us and these memories of them that will live forever, within us and in our hearts.
The soul of man is immortal, it will never die and as long as we continue to carry on these memories within us they also will continue their lives and live, until eternity.
Death might take a beloved person from us; never will we again be able to talk to them, to laugh with them or just to hold them in our arms, just to be close to them for they are gone. Death might take these beloved ones, who were close to our hearts from us, but never can it take those people truly away from us, for the memory remains and as long as we still can remember, this person will live on for us.
Death never is an end; it is never final for those who believe for it cannot be. The memories, all that remains for us are those of a truly joyous time and a full live that we had lived together for as long as this person had lived and he or she too has never lead his or her life in vain, as long as we can keep all those memories and their legacy in honour, as long as we can honour them.
All these are words of comfort and I have heard myself speaking them many times before. Many times before I have given others comfort with these words and consolation, have I given them hope and helped them through their times of mourning and grief and I always have believed them; I still do.
But why is it then so hard for me to find comfort and hope in them for myself now? Why is it so hard for me to find comfort in them, now that I also am standing in front of Him and think about all those people I have lost and that have been close to me, now that even Derek has gone, the man I’d never expected it to happen to or more never wanted it to believe that it would happen. But in the end he also had only been mortal and human; he has always followed his beliefs, just like I have always done in my life.
I have always envied him for his strong beliefs and wished for myself that I could have been that strong in mine. And now he has died for these his beliefs, his beliefs and all that is left for me now in my own time or mourning are my own words of comfort and my own faith. Now I have to find comfort in them and in my own belief that death never truly is final.
~/~
A shadow of pain and grief flit over Phillip’s face, even though already some time had passed since the day he had been there, on the day of the funeral; that he had attended it, almost a year and still his pain over the loss of the true friend, Derek had been for him was ever present in his heart and soul. His thoughts again were clouded with grief this day as he remembered the man that had been more than only his precept, even more than just his friend.
But that man now was dead and all that was left for Phillip was the memory of this man and of his in his own way strong faith, for which he had sacrificed his own life in the end. Phillip prayed for him but also for himself, for that he would be able to be as strong in his own faith as Derek had been and that he also would be able to find the courage and strength to one day be able to sacrifice everything for his own persuasion; if necessary his own life just like Derek had done.
Phillip struck a match to light up a candle on the altar in front of him. He silently spoke a prayer for the living and the dead as he lit up another one, then he continued to light up a third one for their souls, for Derek.
The candles were burning as Phillip prayed, their flames a symbol for life, the life that the Lord has granted us and also the life that if He deemed it necessary or time took away from us; it just had become again very painfully clear for Phillip who was reminded of his own helplessness against what the Lord does, even though he strongly believed that He had His reasons for it. Still, he had once again become painfully aware of the fact that he could do nothing against it when it concerned the people that were close to his own heart for it was His will.
The candles would burn,
just like the flame of life and the immortal soul would burn forever; a flame
which was that strong that not even death was able to extinguish it, to
suffocate for death itself only was another flicker of light that announced the
beginning of a new life; a new life that this small flicker of light death
brought with it would in the end light up so that it would burn forever just
like the human soul would.
~fin~