| Are you afraid that your loved one will be lost in the dim recesses of time? Do you worry that one day, you cannot remember the details of losing a huge part of your life when you can’t recall the face, voice, actions of the loved one who has passed away? Fear not, I have been there, and because I love to write things down, I have found a way to lovingly preserve even the most minute details of my son, Richard’s two and a half-year struggle with renal cancer. I have been journaling for quite a number of years. As I accomplished my degree in Distributive Education, one of the lessons was not to overload your brain with things and phone numbers that you would not use but once or twice a year, but to write them down and keep them in a safe place for ready reference. I have been an avid practitioner of that ever since. As I created the poems for my book, Bittersweet Autumn, I wrote them in a steno notepad to be translated on the typewriter later, and to be sure that those golden nuggets of thought were not lost in the meantime. On the many flights from Las Vegas, Nevada to Richard’s bedside in Midland, Texas, I chronicled in a blank lined notebook not only the reason I was going, but my feelings about them as well. There was always a prayer that THIS time, I would find him improved and showing signs of conquering the disease. But he didn’t conquer the disease; and after his funeral on August 8, 1995, I gathered up my many pages of notes and wrote his story down so I would never lose any of the details of his valiant battle. As I wrote the story with tears pouring down my face, I suddenly realized that he had been teaching me through his example to not be afraid of facing what ever was to come, and to know that God’s will was being carried out whether he survived the ordeal or not. His church adored him and likewise he adored his church, lighting up like a sunbeam each time he went into it. He was unafraid of what he was facing even though he and his church prayed fervently for the Lord to intercede on his behalf until the very last. What I learned through writing his story down was that even in the worst of situations, I must trust in the Lord to do His will with my life, because after all, it is His to do with according to His plan for my life. I am at peace with my only son being at home with the Lord now some seven years later. What I am most at peace with is me learning that I can let go of my own fears about death and move forward confident that I am not in control of my destiny, God is. I would urge you to take notes, write down events as they occur, commit them to an organized permanent record, and one day when your struggle with grief has subsided and your life is progressing, even though you may have thought it had ended, if you feel the need and desire to experience the last times you were with your loved one, take the journal out, find a quiet place, read the pages again, and thank God for looking over you and your loved one who is with Him now. Then replace the record safely and go on with your life. You will never get over it, but you will get past it. It’s what God would want you to do, and so would I. |
| Memories are like photographs ... they both tend to fade with time. © Betty Sue Eaton |
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