My Thoughts As I Face Yet Another Death - A Friend

They seem to come in seasons. None for a long time and then back to back, or so it seems.
It's made me think about my own mortality. The uncertainty of not knowing when your time is up. No one knows when it comes. It just comes. If someone is sick, you know they will either get well, worse, or die. If they are sick, you can understand. . . accept, but when it just happens, it is more difficult.

With the last announcement, it makes me more appreciative of today because that is all we have. Tomorrow is just a hope we have but we really don't know. I can't imagine what my children will go through at the passing of their mother, or my husband. It's hard to think of not being here, seeing them, hugging them, being in their lives.

I can only that I wake tomorrow. But just in case, I never forget to say "I Love You" to my sons, grandsons, daughter-in-laws, granddaughters, to each that I speak to because that maybe what sustains them when I am no longer here.

I enjoy this journey now more than ever. I have lived. God has been my peace, my strength, my source of enthusiasm and desire to go on.  If you haven't gotten your house in order, if you haven't said what you wanted to a loved one, if you haven't forgiven someone, if you have aught against another, maybe it's time to RELEASE!

Death Makes No Announcement: Reverend Michael, Rest In Peace

Death makes no announcement, does it? One day you see your friend, or family member, and then the news comes that person’s spirit has departed the earth, the body is all that is left, but the life has left.

I was shocked at the news of another fallen comrade. Reverend Michael, as he is so lovingly called was my friend. I considered him one of my mountain people. He will be missed for his wisdom, Bible Teaching and love of people, his commitment to help others apply the word of God to their lives in a practical way.

There was an ache in my heart at his loss, but I tried not to allow it to prevent the working of my task for today.

I believe he has gone to a better place. . . Heaven. 

(I chose a Chicken Soup for the Soul Sympathy E-Card to express what I am feeling to the family and friends. Be blessed (click here).

Death Is Like A Car

by Nicholas Gordon

Death is like a car

That disappears around a curve,

Or like an ancient custom

That we've failed to preserve.

The car continues going

Even though we cannot see,

And the custom just remains

Itself, outside of memory.

Death is a relation

To a certain time and place;

To Eternity it's nothing

In a line of endless grace.

I've loved you all so much

That I've known Eternity,

Vast and never ending

Deep within the thing that's me.

Time is like a river

And love a clear, still lake

That holds the sky within it,

Crystalline and yet opaque.

And I have had that gift

In an abundance that is rare,

With you and with my husband

Who's both gone and everywhere.

I feel the awesome beauty

Of the end of earthly breath.

I've had a rich, full life

And now a peaceful, shining death.

Is there life after a death sentence? Read Frank’s Story.

Death Has Touched My Life Again

      The word came today that Alice was dead. She was a friend of a friend. I met her at a time when she desired to take a teaching she had been doing for years to another level, by publishing a book. I recall doing an evaluation for her. Her next step was to began to re-organize her ideas in preparation to go to print.  

You didn’t get a chance to publish your book, but those teachings will live on forever through those you have taught.

      Farewell, my friend, you will be missed. In the short time I had to meet you, I was impressed with your faith and abilities as a woman who cared enough about the spiritual condition of people to use what you had to help many grow in faith.You will be missed as a woman of faith. My heart is in grief but I know you are in the place you were destined to go. . . heaven.

Rest in Peace.

My Son, You Are Alive Yet My Heart Grieves

“A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son grief to his mother. Proverbs 10:1”

A son of mind is a source of grief. He was raised with values and the knowledge of right and wrong. I don’t know what happened. When they are young you have control but when they grow up they make decisions sometimes contrary to what you have taught.

At times I hear myself saying, “If he would only. . . “Nothing will change in his life until he decides to make the change. I grow weary but I hold on to the promises of God in the 23^rd Psalm: The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.

Today is the day you have made, Lord, though I struggle with this burden on my heart, help me to lay it at your feet once and for all. My mother once said, “When they are young they are on your lap and when they get older, they are on your heart.”

I never understood what she meant until I experienced it first hand. He is mine. Lord, help me to remember that he belonged to you first.

Son, I love you, and I won't stop praying for your new life.

Mom  

Sharing Some Thoughts On Grief

Is grief just something we feel when someone dies? There is a stinging of the heart. It is a feeling that brings on emotions that disturb our well being. It is the thunder and lightening before a storm. Thoughts stir our emotions like the movement of lightening in the sky.

Grief is having affections cut with a knife. Grief is shock, frozen in emotions, giving yourself a chance to dissect what has happened. It is a great refuge. Grief is like closed prison bars with the key in the door but you don’t open the door. Grief is like making a snowman in the winter cold that melts when it warms up.

Describing what we feel I believe helps us to accept and move through grief faster, but too often we find our cheerleaders are tolerant but want us to make it go away, pretend it’s over a lot sooner than we are ready to let go.

Can Dogs Grieve?

I asked myself this question a year ago when we loss Pete one of our three dogs at the time. Pete just couldn’t seem to grasp certain doggie concepts, like pee and crap outside. We would take him out but he thought that was time to run, jump and play, something his previous owner conditioned him to do.

What I liked about Pete, he was teaching the oldest member of the family Destiny how to run, jump, play with toys, to have fun. We thought that would never happen. They would spend hours romping around, a far cry from what she thought were her previous duties, which  was to guard my husband at his computer.

And one day Pete was no more. For the next couple of weeks I watched Destiny dealing with grief, pacing back and forth, looking in every room for Pete. She didn’t whine the loss but her wanderings spoke loud and clear that she missed her playmate. This went on for about a month, walking, and sniffing around, wondering where her friend was. By a month and a half she had bounced back to her old self again, back to guarding my husband at his computer.

There are steps to grief. Animals grieve differently than we do but what is noticeable is the change in their behavior.

Human emotions are much more complicated and some people grieve for many years. I met this lady who still wanted to die at the loss of her daughter. This had been awhile. Remembering her made me think of the Brown family and the murder that has plagued OJ Simpson. Years later they are still stuck in grief and it has turned to bitterness and anguish.

I can’t tell you if my Destiny was grieving her loss but her actions for a few weeks made us aware that she too suffered a loss.

Have you read the Story of Hope? Great story the courage of one dog facing a death sentence at www.print2publish.com.