In Remembrance: Louis Kavar, Jr.

It was November 4, 2002. On that day, my father, Louis Kavar, Jr., passed from this life to …. well, I’m not sure I know how to describe what I believe comes after this life. I do believe that death was not the last stage of life for my father.

On one level, I know my father lives on in the memories I hold dear and in the stories I often share with my mother. At times, when we talk about him, his presence is so close that I can feel it. I experience my father even more present in those aspects of myself that are clearly from him: the sound of my sneeze; or laughing at a funny TV show until I begin to cough, as he always did; or when singing a familiar Christmas carol and his voice rings in my ear as when we sang in the church of my youth. Indeed, my father lives on in the fond memories we share of him as a family and as part of the genetics he passed on to me.

On another level, I affirm the foundational Christian belief that in death life is changed, not ended. In the same breath, other aspects of Christian concepts of an after-life seem very pale to me. I gave up the image of “streets of gold” in my middle school years when I learned that Fort Knox didn’t have enough gold to back the US dollar. My disillusionment with mansions in the sky fell apart some years later when I considered the possibility of an eternity of house cleaning and yard work. I understand that these images were meant to convey a plane of experience beyond what we can imagine. They are simply metaphoric images not meant to be taken literally. Beyond these images is a level of reality I only know from my experience in prayer and meditation. This, I believe, is my small window into the life that is to come.

When wrapped in a cloak of silence, experiencing deep quiet in my soul, it is as though the veil between the present and eternity falls away. In this distinct moment of consciousness, all that has been and will ever be is present in a unity beyond words. It is in moments of inner silence that I come to know something of life with is beyond our pale experience.

I believe that my father’s life continues in this other dimension which I experience in the consciousness of meditation. I suspect that this is the experience of life which is part of the energy which binds our cosmos together. It is a dimension filled with peace, potency, and potential. It is in this place that I come to know more of myself, my father, and the One whom I know as Divine.

While I miss not having the ability to share more of this life with my father, it is with gratitude on this anniversary of his passing that I know his presence touching my life. Indeed, his life has changed, not ended. Eight years after his pass, I share his memory and in some way I don’t understand, I know that he is present.