A Different Kind of Near Death Experience (Part 1)

This afternoon I sat for a bit beside Marv, dying. For us who easily forget that we too are dying, it is good to sit near death. We talked about it, and the full life preceding. He wants me to tell the truth at his memorial service, something he has sought to do throughout his long life. Even if it is “bad,” he said.

Will there be more pain? It depends. Perhaps not, if the cancer stays in his liver. But he already feels it in one lung, he thinks, and also started in the other. And he’ll take “whatever the good Lord gives.”

I drove out Fries Lane (an appropriate name given to this good neighbor’s side road, though forced a few years ago by the County’s 911 map naming craze) feeling the nearness of death. Even if I did just turn only 60, even if I do live another 39 years to match my own dad, I want to stay near death.

Life is great, but its meaning comes only with death. There really is nothing “good” about the Friday in Holy Week. Except that “Sunday’s a comin’”!

Saints Glory Days

[Written yesterday]

My appreciation of honoring saints on their glory days grows, now having known some, such as my mother and father. Twelve years ago today (on April 7, 2002) Vivian Eloise Milliken Peterson died at age 85. Exactly nine years later (three years ago today, on April 7, 2011) Elmer Leslie Peterson died at age 99.

Dad chose “Present with the Lord” for mom’s grave marker at Tahoma National Cemetery near Kent, Washington. Those years later, after his graveside service, we sat in the car outside the cemetery office, trying to think of something to have engraved on his side of the marker. We were struggling a bit when the solution finally “popped” into our heads: “Man of God, Full of Years.”

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2)