A Life Remembered

It was a matter of life, then death.  My son in law Jack, semi-professional photographer, amateur astronomer, teacher for remedial students for eleven years, rock hound, punster, and husband to daughter Juliet for 18 years, died suddenly of heart failure on April 29. Within minutes Pastor Jeff Lingle sped to their home and was with Julie.  Friends stayed with Julie in York, SC (she is bedridden) until I could get to York.  Within 12 hours after Jack died, my brother John and I were able to be with Julie.

Like Julie, Jack also was born with spina bifida.  They shared common physical problems but they were not alike in age.  Jack was born in 1947. Julie was born in 1970.  That 23 years of age separation was never a handicap.

He lived to the fullest, and then God must have decided it was time for him to take eternal rest.  I think he just wore out.

Jack had one leg removed in 1998 after a four month hospitalization in Grand Junction, CO where they were living at the time.  But that did not slow down his arms propelling his wheelchair, kept in motion as he attended church events, fairs, museums, dance recitals, all the while keeping his camera shutter blinking open and closed, recording events in the lives of others.

When my brother and I were with Julie in those three days after Jack died, we breathed deeply and kept moving on with things. Then on the fourth day after Jack died, Julie had another medical crisis necessitating an ambulance ride to Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill, SC where she remains presently, being treated for pressure wounds. 

The physician in charge knows how important it is for Julie to attend Jack's funeral today, and the medical village attending to her in hospital has gathered round and all are working in their own special ways to get her a two hour suspension from the confines of her hospital bed so that we can drive her to Charlotte, NC to see Jack's casket lowered back into the earth. Ecclesiastes 3 will be read, at her request.  There is a time and season for everything, and this was his time to die.  It will be a hard day.  Your prayers for Julie are appreciated.

The end of this week contains many appointments for helping get their affairs settled and toward the ultimate goal of getting Julie back to Grand Junction and settled there into Mesa Manor, a skilled nursing facility.

Until I write again, God be with you and keep on with the enjoyment of what you like to do. Smell those lovely spring flowers, enjoy the rain and sun, wind and sky.  I am doing the same.

During natural disasters two enemy animals
will call a truce, so during a hurricane
an owl will share a tree with a mouse
and, during an earthquake, you might find
a mongoose wilted and shivering
beside a snake. The bear will sit down
in a river and ignore the passing salmons 
just as the lion will allow the zebra
to walk home without comment.
I love that there are exceptions.
At funerals and weddings, for example,
the aunts who never speak nod
politely to one another. When my mother
was sick even the prickly neighbors
left flowers and cakes at our door

"Natural Disasters" by Faith Shearin from Telling the Bees. © Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2015