Our Hearts Will Know

     We were on vacation when I found out Landon had died.  My e-mail does more than attract spam, it also transmits our church prayer requests. Though he was only five years old, the cause of his death wasn't given because he had multiple health problems since his traumatic, premature birth.  I didn't know the family particularly well, but there I was in Florida looking at my own handicapped brother, who was also not expected to survive. Roddy will be 52 in March.
     Tuesday was Landon's funeral. There were lots of pictures and videos, most of him laughing or smiling.  Of all the forms of communication available to a child who had no words, Landon chose laughter.  Though it seemed a presumptuous thought from a virtual stranger, I pondered how hard Landon must have laughed when he saw heaven.  I also thought how thankful his family members are now that they didn't allow vanity to keep them from being in the pictures which are now their most tangible connection with their memories of him. At the end of the service, the pastor came down from the platform to talk directly to Landon's 4 and 2 year old siblings, to further explain the separation of body and soul that most adults don't fully comprehend. As we mourners were dismissed, the coffin was opened.  It had been handmade by a close friend of the family, beautifully shaped and bare of the lining by which many promote the illusion of sleep.  His body lay crooked as it always did, his closed eyes no more unseeing than the ones he opened in life.
    Roddy once asked me how we will know one another in heaven.  How did the disciples recognize Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration?  Were there some sort of spiritual name tags?  In this life my brother is short, twisted with scoliosis, spastic, hard of hearing and mildly retarded. That won't be the case in the heavenly body he wears after death or in the resurrection body he receives at the second coming.  How will I recognize my little brother? I have spent years of my life studying the Bible, but my answer came from the instinctive  wisdom God gives mothers, "Our hearts will know each other."