One Week to Live

On Friday, Bill's immediate family flew to Kansas City to attend his aunt Trish's funeral. Friday was her 51st birthday. She died of colon and bile duct cancer. Trish and some family members got together in July to see off her son before he was deployed to Iraq. She had one bought of sickness, but felt fine otherwise and had a wonderful visit. Between then and the end of October, she was hospitalized twice, diagnosed with two types of cancer and died.

As awful as this sounds, I think this might be one of the better ways to die. All of her loved ones came to see her, to have a chance to say goodbye before she died, and she didn't have to suffer long before she finally passed away. (I don't know how much pain she was suffering before she went to the doctor; I would have to think some.) With the help of the Red Cross, even her son was able to come back from Iraq, see her once last time, and then stay to take care of things afterward.

This made me wonder, and this may become a reccurring theme depending on how many people respond to it - which is worse, to lose a loved one instantly, or to sit by helplessly and watch them suffer for months or years before they pass? I think perhaps a week is just about the right time.

So here's my real question, if you were certain to die in one week, what would you do with the next seven days? You can respond here or email me at bacooper65@btinternet.com. With your permission, I'll post the responses.

I hope this isn't too macabre. It's something we all will face, but don't really like to think about.

Moving vs. Dying

There are a lot of similarities between dying and moving to another country. Your closest friends want to spend the last precious moments with you. You're headed to the next exciting phase of your life. And you start giving away a much stuff as possible. Unlike dying though, when someone says a beautiful eulogy, when you move, you get to hear all the nice things people have to say about you while you're still alive and to know what impact you've had in people's lives.

I hate being the center of attention. If life is a play, I'm the one building sets in the back. I like to be involved, and I'm happy to step up to the spotlight in a pinch, but it's not natural to me. But in that quiet way, I've done a lot of things and it was nice to be recognized for them. And I got better at taking the compliments as the process went on.

Special friends started saying goodbye at least a month in advance with dinners out and gifts and speeches. At first, I could only blush and say thanks. Stepping Stones was one of the hardest. The vicar's wife was so lavish with her praise. I thought she surely couldn't be talking about me. I only put together a few crafts and made photocopies. Yet it was nice to hear that I had made a contribution.

By the time we stood up at the last church service to be prayed over, I was much more composed, and pleasantly pleased to realize how many people I had come in contact with in the capacities that I served. I absolutely didn't do any of it for the recognition. I did it for God's glory. But it was nice just the same. And to hear that they'd spoken positively about how we'd impacted village and school life at the governor's meeting and a gathering at the village hall. In a way, it was good to know that we would be missed as much as we would miss them. And that their lasting impressions of those crazy Americans was a good one, not bad.

The vicar's wife told me, "I think Texas must be the friendliest, kindest place on earth, because of you." I'm glad I've represented my God, my country and my state well. And in saying goodbye, that I had the opportunity to tell people how much I cared about them and that they had impacted our lives, too. That's a good way to go. It's sort of like a living eulogy.

It made me wonder, why do we wait until the very end to tell people how much they mean to us?