A Year After Death

I was thinking earlier last night that I was spending too much time on Facebook. I tend to have this great hunger for looking up the latest status of people on a constant basis.

I want to see who validates my opinions about life so I can feel better about myself.

I want to see who disagrees with my opinion so I can find some argument against it.

But of course this is all vanity and sucks my time away. I came to the conclusion that Less Facebook = More Time For Life.

But one of the reasons I don’t give up Facebook entirely is not from the high I get of the scattered opinions about life but because Facebook reminds me of things I don’t want to forget.

About a year ago my good friend Pattie Goodale and her whole family died of Covid. I didn’t forget that she died a year ago, but I didn’t remember the exact date, but knew it was coming up. And while looking at FB before I was about to go to bed, I saw pictures of her posted by another friend of ours in her memory.

Last year as a new Patheos author I penned this post. Cleaning Up After Death JUNE 08, 2020 which talks about losing my friend. Click on the link tor ead the article. Looking at it a year later, it needs to be cleaned up a little. Some of the pictures didn’t stick and I have to find them again and put them in so they don’t fall out.

Dying is part of living. All things that are born will live and then die, and no one knows exactly when that end will come in most cases. Being human is 100% fatal. Death comes to all (unless Christ appears first), and at best, we can only guess, so what happens when someone is taken away by tragedy or disease, and suddenly you’re left speechless before your friend or family member?
Jack Wellman, What Do You Say To A Grieving Friend Or Family Member? (April 9, 2018) Christian Crier @ Patheos Evangelical

Kristin and I talked to her on the phone even though she was unresponsive. The nurse said when she heard our voice her heart rate rose. We prayed for her, told her to Trust in Jesus and sang Amazing Grace to her.

Even when others are not fully conscious of it, they can sometimes sense our love.

You really never know when the last time it will be when you see someone, so you should make every moment count. I don’t always do that, but I should.

This past weekend Kristin and I were supposed to go and meet some of the friends that Pattie and I had in common, but alas my wife got sick and had to go to the hospital. On Thursday she went to the eye doctor to get her eyes checked. She told the optometrist that she was seeing double. Thinking that it might be the sign of a stroke, she sent her to the hospital. It turned out that Kristin wasn’t going to have a stroke but that she had low sodium. This is a result of her epilepsy medication. She now is on a fluid restriction. If she drinks too much water it could flush out the sodium in her body. Flush too much out, my wife could go into a coma or possibly die. Her double vision helped alert us to a problem that could potentially take her life. But she is still here with us.

Today I remember my friend and her family who are not still with us. I wish she was. I think of her often and how I think she should still be here. But instead I pray for her and her family. Where ever they may be, may it be with Christ.

May her soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.

Jesus I Trust In You to take care of my friends soul and that of her family.