Cheerfully Awaiting

[Carborendum]

There is a sister in our ward who is an empty-nester widow.  He husband died just a couple of years ago.  Her youngest son who was watching over her finally got married and moved out last year.  I had befriended him while he lived here.  I was sorry to see him go.  But we still text each other.

As you can imagine she was quite upset at finally being on her own with no one to talk to or watch over her.  She has a friend in the ward in much the same situation, so the two of them kind of kept each other company from time-to-time.

I wasn't her ministering brother.  But she just seemed to latch on to me as a surrogate son while at church.  I make it a point to give her a watermelon each year.

As of a couple weeks ago I realized that I had not seen her at church for a while.  When I asked around, I found out she was hospitalized.  So, I called her son to see what the situation was.

She had something resembling a stroke.  It turned out it was brought on by two brain tumors.  After her son gave me her location (a care facility in the next town over) my wife and I decided to make it our date night activity to go visit her.

She was really upbeat and happy to see us.  We had a nice conversation about all that had happened, and bits and pieces of her life.  She had had lots of visitors.  She's now part of a different ward that covers the location of the care facility.  So, visitors from both wards came to see her.  That was cool to hear.

The most surprising thing she told us was her end-of-life planning.  She was offered chemo, and she had to ask, "how much will that buy me?" Two or three months. "You want me to be miserable for the 6 to 12 months I've got, just to buy me two months?  Forget that."  Yes, she's pretty strong-willed like that.

We talked about what she was going to do with her time.  She gave us some thoughts she had had.  I suggested that she write her memoir for posterity.  She talked about her hands.  She was born left-handed.  But in those days schools forced everyone to write with their right hand.  So, for all her life she was a clumsy writer.  She never practiced enough with her left hand to get good.  And she was never going to write well with her right hand.

But after the stroke, she found that she was right-handed.  She could write now.  She believed that it was a sign that she should write something and believed my suggestion was inspired.

She's got 6-12 months to live and she's really happy about it.  She really can't wait to get her memoir done.  And she is really looking forward to her final rest.  I reckon that among her final words in this world will be to tell someone, "I'll see you soon."

[Jamie123]

On 5/30/2024 at 4:03 PM, Carborendum said:

And she is really looking forward to her final rest.

It makes me think of these lines by Johnson:

Quote

Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, 
Obedient passions, and a will resign’d; 
For love, which scarce collective man can fill; 
For patience, sov’reign o’er transmuted ill; 
For faith, that panting for a happier seat, 
Counts death kind nature’s signal of retreat: 
These goods for man the laws of heaven ordain, 
These goods he grants, who grants the pow’r to gain; 
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, 
And makes the happiness she does not find.