My uncle is dying.
I went to lunch with my parents this week. I try to do that as often as I can. This week we discussed death, and all the things no one really wants to talk about.
It was hard.
It is hard to see my dad's last brother slipping away. As he struggles finding the reality, he is living day to day knowing it's getting closer. Of course, we all are getting closer to death each day of living, but once you get that actual "Dr. Said" notice, it must be frustrating living out the last of your minutes in vague understanding of what is happening as your body fails.
I saw my uncle last summer. We have had a long distance relationship with him for years, as he has lived a solitary life (of his choosing) many, many miles from home. My generation has spread out far and wide in this world, but most of my aunts and uncles continue to live close by.
Except this one. We maintained contact via emails, and occasional visits. The last one was when he returned for my grandma's funeral. He was struggling with clear thinking back then, and I began to realize the days were getting shorter. I probably will not see him again before he's gone.
I look forward to the reports I hear of how he's doing. My cousins, his children, are doing good at keeping the rest of us updated on his health. He sounds happy and is being well cared for.
But it's hard to see.
And it's getting harder for my dad.
He lost his first brother almost 16 years ago to a tragic auto accident. It reshaped the lives of our entire family when he passed.
Now, Dad is realizing the memories they have always shared are mostly now in his own mind. When his brother is gone, he remains as the oldest of the siblings, but what he shared with his brothers will be his alone.
It makes him sad. He is grateful for his 4 younger sisters. But he seems to feel like a lone wolf, in charge of a dying pack.
Death is hard.
I look at dad, strong and proud. He is slowing down, his health is poor. He doesn't ask for pity, he just needs someone to talk to. I know his days are not long for this earth, and I know his passing with be difficult for me.
But I also know that I have been loved and cared for over 50 years now, by a loving father, much softer in heart than he appears on the surface. Many of my life values have been shaped and polished by this man. He says he carried me the first five years of my life. I hope to help carry him the last years of his.
Life. Death. It's all we have. I hope I am making the most of mine.
I know my examples have been the family men that I have looked up to.
Heaven will welcome them when it's their time to enter the pearly gates.
And God will bottle our tears. Psalm 56:8
Large family life, through a mama's eyes
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Friday, March 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Calling Out the Saints
A tradition in our church has had me thinking for the last few weeks.
On a particular Sunday of the month of November, our church takes a few moments to remember those who have left us here on earth to spend their eternity in Heaven. The names are read aloud, while candles are lit for each name mentioned. Faces flash on an overhead screen, a last look (for many of us)on the faces of Saints who have gone before us.
After the names are read and candles are lit, music soothes raw emotions as a time to remember is allowed to those of us in the pews. We are invited to call out the names of people whom we have lost in our lives, giving tribute, one more time, to the loved ones those around us may not have ever met, but that we each know as a missing piece in our family puzzle since their passing.
As the music played, my heart immediately remembered Pop. He was not my Pop, or Mike's Pop. He was someone we had just met this summer while visiting our kids in New Jersey. He was a kind, gentle man, who we waved at while he mowed the lawn, and met briefly as we shook his hand. We knew him more as the head of a family who had welcomed our children into their fold, since our family was much to far away to be with them day to day. He was spoken of highly by our son, who also has great regard for Pop's son, Dan. He was the top of a chain that seemed to speak wonderful words of a loving God, down to the lives who must now live without their beloved father on this earth. His passing was within days of our church ceremony, and his name and legacy was fresh in our hearts.
Just before the music ended in this service of remembrance, my heart travelled back to the days of loss of my own grandma Thelma this year. I have written of her life, and the legacy she left to us in her passing. She will never be forgotten, and I spoke her name aloud into the silence of the church, reverently giving appreciation to a loving, saving God, whom she now walks with on the streets of gold.
As the service moved on, I was simply reminded in the calling out of these names, Pop and Grandma, just how small our world on earth really is. Although my grandma and Pop would probably have never met on earth, they now rejoice together in Heaven, and they are connected by a thread that makes perfect sense to me now. My son, Scotty, was loved and prayed for by both of these Saints of God, although their earthly lives were over 700 miles apart.
I don't believe any of this was accidental in the broad scheme of life in a Walk of Faith. I was grateful to honor two wonderful saints who have now passed into eternity, and I wonder now, just who am I praying for or connected to today, that will only be made know when I enter those pearly gates when my name is called into eternity.
I miss you, Grandma. I know Pop's family is missing him too.
Small world. Tremendously HUGE God!
On a particular Sunday of the month of November, our church takes a few moments to remember those who have left us here on earth to spend their eternity in Heaven. The names are read aloud, while candles are lit for each name mentioned. Faces flash on an overhead screen, a last look (for many of us)on the faces of Saints who have gone before us.
After the names are read and candles are lit, music soothes raw emotions as a time to remember is allowed to those of us in the pews. We are invited to call out the names of people whom we have lost in our lives, giving tribute, one more time, to the loved ones those around us may not have ever met, but that we each know as a missing piece in our family puzzle since their passing.
As the music played, my heart immediately remembered Pop. He was not my Pop, or Mike's Pop. He was someone we had just met this summer while visiting our kids in New Jersey. He was a kind, gentle man, who we waved at while he mowed the lawn, and met briefly as we shook his hand. We knew him more as the head of a family who had welcomed our children into their fold, since our family was much to far away to be with them day to day. He was spoken of highly by our son, who also has great regard for Pop's son, Dan. He was the top of a chain that seemed to speak wonderful words of a loving God, down to the lives who must now live without their beloved father on this earth. His passing was within days of our church ceremony, and his name and legacy was fresh in our hearts.
Just before the music ended in this service of remembrance, my heart travelled back to the days of loss of my own grandma Thelma this year. I have written of her life, and the legacy she left to us in her passing. She will never be forgotten, and I spoke her name aloud into the silence of the church, reverently giving appreciation to a loving, saving God, whom she now walks with on the streets of gold.
As the service moved on, I was simply reminded in the calling out of these names, Pop and Grandma, just how small our world on earth really is. Although my grandma and Pop would probably have never met on earth, they now rejoice together in Heaven, and they are connected by a thread that makes perfect sense to me now. My son, Scotty, was loved and prayed for by both of these Saints of God, although their earthly lives were over 700 miles apart.
I don't believe any of this was accidental in the broad scheme of life in a Walk of Faith. I was grateful to honor two wonderful saints who have now passed into eternity, and I wonder now, just who am I praying for or connected to today, that will only be made know when I enter those pearly gates when my name is called into eternity.
I miss you, Grandma. I know Pop's family is missing him too.
Small world. Tremendously HUGE God!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Rest In Peace, Dear Grandma
I woke up this morning to one of "those" calls. The kind that causes the thumping in your heart, the intensity while you try to focus on the words you are listening to.
"Grandma passed away peacefully in her sleep this morning. She passed just like I remember her mother passing when I was a teenager."
Dad left me a message. At 94 years old, and in a frail body whose heart was surrounded by fluids that made her breathing labored and painful, she closed her eyes and met Jesus. Just like that. Due to a form of dementia, she had left us years ago.
Dad assured me he was not grief stricken. Sad, yes. But also so happy for her.
As I look around, I experience a surreal feeling about her passing. We live in the house that her and grandpa built over 70 years ago. Coming from West Virginia, they settled here when Grandpa got a job at the train yards. From all the stories I heard growing up, he worked hard, helped anyone who needed it, and loved to tell a corny joke. Because their youngest daughter and I are less than 2 years apart, we became fast friends in our childhood and I spent many happy years as I grew up right here in this house.
When we bought the house 13 years ago, Grandpa had been gone for years and Grandma was still living on her own, but traded the responsibilities of this property for a small house trailer that was more manageable. She eventually moved to a much smaller apartment in town, just big enough to house her treasures until she finally had to be placed in a care facility. With the house, I inherited Grandpa's wonderful collection of books about World War II, along with the memories of him rocking contentedly next to them as he studied, almost as if he were preparing a great speech for thousands who would hang on every word he uttered. He slowly lost his ability to perform mathematical equations, a sad rekoning for a man who had built every inch of his family home with his own design and strong hands. The books sat silently on the shelf as Grandpa wandered aimlessly down the streets of our town, smiling and happy with the travels he took in his mind, until a neighbor would return him safely back to his home. The home that surrounds my family now.
So much of who he was is reflected in the hand sawed wooden floors I walk on, the walls that shelter us, and the barren property that is lush and grown up now all these years later for my children to thrive on just as I did. He was the first family member I had lost, and I was saddened by the death of a great man. I reasoned that his mind had left us several years before, and he was at peace. But grandma was still with us, so I cherished her in a different way now.
She was strong, loving, part of who I have become as a woman. She was my only grandma, since my mothers parents died before I was born. Grandma and I shared a love for writing, taking words and laying them out to express an idea, or recording an event that was important in our worlds. She wrote for the local news paper years ago, sharing her heart about how difficult it was to be the caregiver for an alzheimers patient, but how willingly she did that for her loving husband until his death. The first article I had published in the local paper, she clipped and saved in a folder that I received after she entered the nursing home. She had saved everything I had written, beginning with silly poems in my childhood, to actual articles that I was asked to cover for local events.
She sent me encouraging notes through the years, urging me to continue writing, expressing my thoughts, even if it were just in a journal that no one else would ever see. She believed in the power of words to comfort, heal and sustain us. She poured over the written words in Scripture, balancing her lifestyle with her own 7 children and setting an example for all of us to follow. One time she spent hours with me, as I tape recorded an interview about her first published work, "That Girl from West Virginia". I realized when I heard the recording years later that our conversation was so much more than an interview, and although I covered the article for our local post, the recording rests among my most treasured earthly items because it contained her giggle, her voice and our love for a craft that I had learned to enjoy as much as she had in her prime.
So now she is gone from my life for good. She was trapped in a mind that failed her many years ago, her body eventually giving over to the years it had supported this wonderful woman, her spirit floating above the earth to join her adored Savior, leaving us to put her to rest for eternity. I envision her wearing a colorful scarf at her neck, large earrings adorning her glowing face, perfectly matched to the heavenly garments that gracefully flows around her. She told me several times that a good pair of black slacks was a necessity in a woman's closet, because they always made you look slimmer. Such a beauty, so understated, a classic lady in whatever she wore. She will be beautiful today in Heaven, wearing all white on her perfect body, a splash of color to set off her eyes and smile.
I am, in large, a part of Grandma. Growing up in the home full of love and prayers, cherishing the times I saw her knelt beside her couch on an early saturday morning, her Bible open before her, hands clasped in prayer, beginning her day with appreciation to the God who created her. My security grew as I came back to live in the peaceful home she loved, a treasure in my life, I have become who I am because of my grandma's faithful prayers.
I have missed her for years. But her memory has lingered, and I think she would be proud of who I have become. Her great encouragements are nestled in a worn folder in my office, written in her beautiful penmanship until the later years when her hands grew weaker, a treasure that I will pass on to one of my children some day.
Even more than the precious pieces of paper I have to look at, Grandma's gentle spirit will remain with me forever. Today I mourn her passing, but continue on the path that will eventually lead me to eternity beside her, praising Jesus and holding each other tightly. I can hear her laughing this morning, basking in HIS glory.
Rest in Peace, Mary Thelma Thompson Meador. You are loved.
"Grandma passed away peacefully in her sleep this morning. She passed just like I remember her mother passing when I was a teenager."
Dad left me a message. At 94 years old, and in a frail body whose heart was surrounded by fluids that made her breathing labored and painful, she closed her eyes and met Jesus. Just like that. Due to a form of dementia, she had left us years ago.
Dad assured me he was not grief stricken. Sad, yes. But also so happy for her.
As I look around, I experience a surreal feeling about her passing. We live in the house that her and grandpa built over 70 years ago. Coming from West Virginia, they settled here when Grandpa got a job at the train yards. From all the stories I heard growing up, he worked hard, helped anyone who needed it, and loved to tell a corny joke. Because their youngest daughter and I are less than 2 years apart, we became fast friends in our childhood and I spent many happy years as I grew up right here in this house.
When we bought the house 13 years ago, Grandpa had been gone for years and Grandma was still living on her own, but traded the responsibilities of this property for a small house trailer that was more manageable. She eventually moved to a much smaller apartment in town, just big enough to house her treasures until she finally had to be placed in a care facility. With the house, I inherited Grandpa's wonderful collection of books about World War II, along with the memories of him rocking contentedly next to them as he studied, almost as if he were preparing a great speech for thousands who would hang on every word he uttered. He slowly lost his ability to perform mathematical equations, a sad rekoning for a man who had built every inch of his family home with his own design and strong hands. The books sat silently on the shelf as Grandpa wandered aimlessly down the streets of our town, smiling and happy with the travels he took in his mind, until a neighbor would return him safely back to his home. The home that surrounds my family now.
So much of who he was is reflected in the hand sawed wooden floors I walk on, the walls that shelter us, and the barren property that is lush and grown up now all these years later for my children to thrive on just as I did. He was the first family member I had lost, and I was saddened by the death of a great man. I reasoned that his mind had left us several years before, and he was at peace. But grandma was still with us, so I cherished her in a different way now.
She was strong, loving, part of who I have become as a woman. She was my only grandma, since my mothers parents died before I was born. Grandma and I shared a love for writing, taking words and laying them out to express an idea, or recording an event that was important in our worlds. She wrote for the local news paper years ago, sharing her heart about how difficult it was to be the caregiver for an alzheimers patient, but how willingly she did that for her loving husband until his death. The first article I had published in the local paper, she clipped and saved in a folder that I received after she entered the nursing home. She had saved everything I had written, beginning with silly poems in my childhood, to actual articles that I was asked to cover for local events.
She sent me encouraging notes through the years, urging me to continue writing, expressing my thoughts, even if it were just in a journal that no one else would ever see. She believed in the power of words to comfort, heal and sustain us. She poured over the written words in Scripture, balancing her lifestyle with her own 7 children and setting an example for all of us to follow. One time she spent hours with me, as I tape recorded an interview about her first published work, "That Girl from West Virginia". I realized when I heard the recording years later that our conversation was so much more than an interview, and although I covered the article for our local post, the recording rests among my most treasured earthly items because it contained her giggle, her voice and our love for a craft that I had learned to enjoy as much as she had in her prime.
So now she is gone from my life for good. She was trapped in a mind that failed her many years ago, her body eventually giving over to the years it had supported this wonderful woman, her spirit floating above the earth to join her adored Savior, leaving us to put her to rest for eternity. I envision her wearing a colorful scarf at her neck, large earrings adorning her glowing face, perfectly matched to the heavenly garments that gracefully flows around her. She told me several times that a good pair of black slacks was a necessity in a woman's closet, because they always made you look slimmer. Such a beauty, so understated, a classic lady in whatever she wore. She will be beautiful today in Heaven, wearing all white on her perfect body, a splash of color to set off her eyes and smile.
I am, in large, a part of Grandma. Growing up in the home full of love and prayers, cherishing the times I saw her knelt beside her couch on an early saturday morning, her Bible open before her, hands clasped in prayer, beginning her day with appreciation to the God who created her. My security grew as I came back to live in the peaceful home she loved, a treasure in my life, I have become who I am because of my grandma's faithful prayers.
I have missed her for years. But her memory has lingered, and I think she would be proud of who I have become. Her great encouragements are nestled in a worn folder in my office, written in her beautiful penmanship until the later years when her hands grew weaker, a treasure that I will pass on to one of my children some day.
Even more than the precious pieces of paper I have to look at, Grandma's gentle spirit will remain with me forever. Today I mourn her passing, but continue on the path that will eventually lead me to eternity beside her, praising Jesus and holding each other tightly. I can hear her laughing this morning, basking in HIS glory.
Rest in Peace, Mary Thelma Thompson Meador. You are loved.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Death - when it's close to home or far away
I think it's taken me several days to wrap my mind around the Haitian tragedy. I keep my television tuned to the current news and the faces haunt me when I lay in my warm bed each night. I can not fathom the loss, the extreme devastation and the pain these people have suffered and continue to suffer on a level I probably will never know. I hope I never have to.
Death. We lost a dear friend to it's grasp last week. He was a mentor to my husband, a grandfather to my oldest children and a model of the type Christian I hope to be someday. He was a selfless, precious soul, kindness and compassion oozed from his smile, his tender eyes, his work worn hands. At his funeral, while snow swirled and cold winter winds blew outside, we stood with the family and friends who mourned the passing of this great man of God. With Military honors for his service to our country, we watched the solemn process as the American flag was folded with great care and handed to the beautiful widow who loved him in life and will never forget him in death. As guns saluted him in honor, we wept for our loss, grateful that at that time he was already touching the face of God.
Then I see the funerals of fellow humans in Haiti, reeling from the harsh reality of the magnitude of deaths in their community, well over 200,000 lives snuffed out by an "act of God." An earthquake that has caused aftershocks in it's wake that create further terror as the ground continues to shake. Mothers crying over the deaths of children in the piles of rubble that they will never touch again, their cries snuffed out from their injuries and slow deaths. There are no honorable burials there, but people who have suffered much already, burying precious lives in unmarked graves, or mass burials where they pile hundreds of bodies into huge holes in the ground just to rid the immediate area of impending disease and decay.
It is a stark reminder to me that the death of our friend and the deaths in Haiti are so very different that they can not be compared to each other. However, the grieving here is planned and we are allowed time to process our grief through a compassionate service. The funerals in Haiti are performed quickly to aid in allowing rescuers to continue seeking lost and buried bodies, hoping against all odds that they may, possibly, find one more soul who is waiting for their hand to pull them from the rubble.
Has anyone else been sickened by the sad eyes of even more orphans left in a massive amount of destruction, needing basic necessities to exist one more day? For what? How many just pray for it all to end, or do they have small pieces of hope left in their hearts against the reality of their desperate situation?
As we continue to pray for the Ethiopian children who seem like a distant dream some days, I pray for the Haitian children and wish deeply that there was something more that I could do to ease their suffering. I pray that the 3 empty beds we have in our home can be filled, and the hearts of suffering, lonely children can be made whole again here.
Death is final. We all face it. It just hurts to see death come to children who are alone, scared and dying moment by moment. And there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Pray with me for the little orphan angels. Godspeed to the ones who are on their way home.
Death. We lost a dear friend to it's grasp last week. He was a mentor to my husband, a grandfather to my oldest children and a model of the type Christian I hope to be someday. He was a selfless, precious soul, kindness and compassion oozed from his smile, his tender eyes, his work worn hands. At his funeral, while snow swirled and cold winter winds blew outside, we stood with the family and friends who mourned the passing of this great man of God. With Military honors for his service to our country, we watched the solemn process as the American flag was folded with great care and handed to the beautiful widow who loved him in life and will never forget him in death. As guns saluted him in honor, we wept for our loss, grateful that at that time he was already touching the face of God.
Then I see the funerals of fellow humans in Haiti, reeling from the harsh reality of the magnitude of deaths in their community, well over 200,000 lives snuffed out by an "act of God." An earthquake that has caused aftershocks in it's wake that create further terror as the ground continues to shake. Mothers crying over the deaths of children in the piles of rubble that they will never touch again, their cries snuffed out from their injuries and slow deaths. There are no honorable burials there, but people who have suffered much already, burying precious lives in unmarked graves, or mass burials where they pile hundreds of bodies into huge holes in the ground just to rid the immediate area of impending disease and decay.
It is a stark reminder to me that the death of our friend and the deaths in Haiti are so very different that they can not be compared to each other. However, the grieving here is planned and we are allowed time to process our grief through a compassionate service. The funerals in Haiti are performed quickly to aid in allowing rescuers to continue seeking lost and buried bodies, hoping against all odds that they may, possibly, find one more soul who is waiting for their hand to pull them from the rubble.
Has anyone else been sickened by the sad eyes of even more orphans left in a massive amount of destruction, needing basic necessities to exist one more day? For what? How many just pray for it all to end, or do they have small pieces of hope left in their hearts against the reality of their desperate situation?
As we continue to pray for the Ethiopian children who seem like a distant dream some days, I pray for the Haitian children and wish deeply that there was something more that I could do to ease their suffering. I pray that the 3 empty beds we have in our home can be filled, and the hearts of suffering, lonely children can be made whole again here.
Death is final. We all face it. It just hurts to see death come to children who are alone, scared and dying moment by moment. And there is nothing I can do to stop it.
Pray with me for the little orphan angels. Godspeed to the ones who are on their way home.
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