Category Archives: dying

cancer, dying, Faith, Family, Health, Hope, Hospice, inspiration, Jesus, life, Marriage, Truth

Sweetie Pie

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I’ve been thinking back about an older couple I knew when I was in college.  Loved them! Great, rock solid, influential people!

He developed cancer.  After a valiant fight, Hospice was called.  Hospice was there round the clock during his last days at home.

They were always a very kind, loving couple, quite expressive in their love and admiration for each other.  They used pet names, like Sweetie Pie and Sugar Plum, Honey Bear and Honey Bunny, along with other pet names as terms of endearment.

They would greet each other, usually in a higher pitch voice with great emphasis on their tones, sounding like they were talking to a bouncing baby or a favorite animal.

Their transparent physical, emotional and verbal affection for each other was fun to watch.  I learned a lot from them.

But that was in life.  Death was a little different. Continue reading Sweetie Pie →

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Church, dying, Faith, Family, fathers, Hope, inspiration

What Words Cannot Say

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I put the rose from his garden in his rigamortis hand.  It didn’t look natural.  A snap of the stem to shorten it, then working it under his cold fingers and folded hands made it presentable.

Yes, that’s better.

I slipped a note I had hurriedly written, almost as an afterthought, and slipped it inside his suit jacket, hidden from the world, never to be read by anyone, not even the one it was written to. Continue reading What Words Cannot Say →

beauty, dying, Faith, Family, Hope, love, Truth

A Rocking Chair of Life

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She remembered an incident that happened years before and burst into laughter.  Instinctively, her hand went to the rocking chair beside her.  The blade of reality cut as she returned to the present.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes to regain her composure, and settled quietly back into the rhythmic rocking of her chair.

For years she sat each evening with her husband rocking at sunset.  Sometimes they talked non-stop; sometimes they sat quietly.  Sometimes they even bickered back and forth like two school children, but there was never a doubt that they were on each other’s team.  In fact, they were each other’s biggest fan.

The years since he retired were some of the best and enjoyable evenings of all. Each knew, however, that the sunsets they watched from their front porch rockers were similar to themselves.

Even so, when he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer six months earlier, it seemed like a short time was cut shorter, for it was all too quick, too sudden, too complete.  Continue reading A Rocking Chair of Life →

depression, dying, Faith, Family, grace, Hope, inspiration, life, love, Truth, words

They Said

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No doubt her hands were shaking when she wrote her suicide note.  Her heart was in a million pieces, pieces that apparently no one noticed, or maybe, cared to notice.

She tried to write her last words, words that would explain, words that will tell all and clarify her actions. She wanted to describe her feelings, and try to explain why she did what she was about to do.

Her heart spilled out of the pen onto the paper as she wrote her last words.  She tied a rope to a ceiling beam in her apartment, stood in a chair, tied the other end around her neck and kicked the chair aside.

They Said story

The police found her several days later when a neighbor became concerned.  Her suicide note explained nothing, yet said it all.  Her note contained two words…….“They said”.

Tragically, this true story happened in California and no one ever discovered who, how or what they said.  One thing, however, was certain, they said it.

The tongue, and the pen, can wield amazing power to make people laugh or be encouraged. Words can cause one to believe and hope, yet words can bring devastation, heartache and despair.

Words can be of instruction, construction or destruction.

There’s the power of life and death in words.  They can heal, or they can kill.

Look for opportunities to shut up. Converse wisely.  Talk gently. Speak life.

Too bad that’s not what “they said”.

They Said story

dying, Family, Gratitude, Humor, inspiration, story

The 55 Plus Club

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I turned 55 a few days ago. It’s the speed limit birthday, the double nickel, the best domino on the table!

They say 60 is the new 40, but it was an aging Baby Boomer who came up with that malarkey!

They also say you’re only as old as you feel! That’s no comfort!  I feel like a Model T!!

A redeeming factor about turning 55 is a “senior discount”!  Can I get an amen, or oh me!?

Continue reading The 55 Plus Club →

dying, Faith, food, grace, Hope, kindness

When Did I See You Hungry?

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His frail fingers trembled as he took the nickel from the missionary’s hand.  The starving Haitian boy was wearing a pair of ragged shorts, threadbare t-shirt, and shoes that had worn out months before.

During the peak of the famine, homeless children and orphans looked for any way they could to survive.  If they could get a nickel, they could get enough scraps of food to live another day.

So when the missionary was walking on a road in Haiti and came across the sickly orphan boy sitting listlessly on the roadside, he gave the boy a nickel.  Continue reading When Did I See You Hungry? →

dying, Faith, Family, fathers, grace, Hospice, inspiration

I See Daniel

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My dad, Daniel Rab, was best friends in high school with Jimmie Jones, who lived right across the street.  Dad was the fifth of 9 Rab children and Jimmie was the oldest of 8 Jones kids.  Needless to say, under those circumstances, they were always at each other’s house and there was always something to do.

Dad got to where he would go over to Jimmie’s house, but not so much to see his best friend, but rather Jimmie’s younger sister, Jo Ann, my Mom.

And so it was over time Mom became a Rab.

Continue reading I See Daniel →

dying, Family, Health, Hospice, inspiration, kindness, love, story

Baby Girl

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It takes someone with a golden heart and an iron will to work at Hospice. My friend, Linda, is one of those people.

Hospice workers try to guard their emotions so they don’t burn out and can help the next person, the next day.  Some people still get through the protective wall though and profoundly touch the heart.

For Linda, one such person was an older lady who was quite lucid at the time, but only had a couple of months to live. Every day she went to see her. They would sit and visit, and Linda did all the things she could to help care for her new, dying friend.

No one should feel alone when they die, and the lady’s family was scattered across the country and not able to be with her.  Linda was, however, and she began preparing her for the final goodbye. Continue reading Baby Girl →