The life of heaven must be begun here on earth.

Tonight while reading Anne of the Island (third book in the Anne of Green Gables series) with Mya, I choked up with tears as I read a conversation between Anne and her dying childhood chum Ruby Gillis. Ruby, overcome with fear of dying and the unknown, sobbed bitterly as she said, "I've fought so hard to live--and it isn't any use--I have to die--and leave everything I care for."

The book reads, "Anne sat in a pain that was almost intolerable. She could not tell comforting falsehoods; and all that Ruby said was so horribly true. She was leaving everything she cared for. She had laid up her treasures on earth only; she had lived solely for the little things of life--the things that pass--forgetting the great things that go onward into eternity, bridging the gulf between the two lives and making of death a mere passing from one dwelling to the other--from twilight to unclouded day. God would take of her there--Anne believe--she would learn--but now it was no wonder her soul clung, in blind helplessness, to the only things she knew and loved."

Anne reminds Ruby to be brave and leaves to go home.

The book reads, "Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight. The evening had changed something for her. Life held a different meaning, a deeper purpose. On the surface it would go on just the same; but the deeps had been stirred. It must be with her as poor butterfly Ruby. When she came to the end of one life it must not be to face the next with shrinking terror of something wholly different--something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her. The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here on earth."

Anne, intending to return for more visits, never has the chance because Ruby passes away in her sleep during the night. At her funeral, it was noted, "Ruby had always been beautiful, but her beauty had been of the earth, earthy; it had had a certain insolent quality in it, as if it flaunted itself in the beholder's eye; spirit had never shone through it, intellect had never refined it. But death had touched it and consecrated it, bringing out delicate modelings and purity of outline never seen before--doing what life and love and great sorry and deep womanhood joys might have done for Ruby. Anne, looking down through a mist of tears, at her old playfellow, thought she saw the face God had meant Ruby to have, and remembered it so always."

I found this passage of the book deeply profound, so profound in fact that I could not read it. My heart felt a million things--joy, sadness, wonder, love and truth. I read as long as I could before my vision was blurry from tears, and I passed the book to Mya, who looking at me in a bit of disbelief kind of giggled at my inability to read and then realized I wasn't about to compose myself any time soon so she began to read. She finished the chapter and asked me why I cried (I had stopped at that point), and I told her that I felt it was a beautiful reminder of what life and purpose is all about, especially now. Especially now when it's easy to, as Ruby, only think of the earthly losses and not so much about the eternal gains, and I'm not even really speaking religiously here. Think about how this virus has brought all kinds of people together. How it has healed pieces of our wounded planet, cleaning filthy waters and polluted skies. How it has brought families back around the dinner table. How kids are rekindling friendships with siblings they rarely see.

I am not naive to the fact that this virus has also had negative impacts in certain homes and situations. I worry about hungry, neglected or abused children. I worry about addicts. I worry about people with dementia who can't be visited by family. I worry about doctors sleeping in their garages. There are very painful things brought about by this virus, but I believe if we look at the earth and the society in which we live, just as Anne looked at Ruby at her funeral, we will see there is more spirit in the earth.  There is more love. I choose to see it that way, and I was so grateful to be reminded of this tonight.