See you later – In memory of Mladen Jovanovic
As someone whose English is not his native language, and has struggled to learn idioms (I guess everyone who wants to learn a foreign language would understand the challenge), I have always been perplexed by the phrase “see you later.” For me, “see you later” literally means “see…you….later”. Yet, when I heard some brothers and sisters tell me “see you later” when I know it will not be at least for another year, I haven’t made much sense of it. While to them it meant “I will see you sometime in the future”, to me it didn’t.
However, there is some truth to it, in view of eternity. For us as Christians, we can come to the funeral of a beloved brother or sister and say: “See you later.” We all hope and look forward to the blessed hope of eternity. The last few days have been hard on me and several others I know, because we have said “goodbye” to a brother and a friend, our dearest Mladen Jovanovic. It has been hard because in 11 years I have known him, we have shared together life and faith, and have been mutually encouraged (yet, if I am to me perfectly honest with myself I have benefited more from him than he has from me).
It all started meeting in a bus going to Llogara Christian Camp. He was coming there to teach, I knew he was coming, but I mistakenly thought that he was someone from the local church in Vlora. How could you blame me, he looked like everybody else and humbly sat on the bus with us. Little did I know that I was going to feast in the Word of God for a whole week at his feet. We have met several times after that and we met again two weeks before his promotion into eternity. We stopped at a “slow food” restaurant with him, Dragica, my wife and my son and enjoyed our last meal together. On that meal he was superiorly complementary and encouraging. My wife told me that when we went our separate ways, he turned his back to see one more the car taking the other direction as if we didn’t want this moment to end…..not knowing that this was actually our last moment.
In the 19th century, Henry Van Dyke wrote about the death pictured by a ship slipping away. It has come to be known as the “parable of immortality.” I believe it expresses well what I feel right now:
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, “There she goes!”
Gone where?
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She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
” There she goes! “
there are other eyes watching her coming . . .
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout . . .
” Here she comes! “
I am a better and richer person because my dear brother and friend, you graced our life. Thank you!
It was hard to say “goodbye” yesterday…..so I am simply saying “see you later”.
-Bledi Valca
