A Great Loss

After church this evening, we went to visit my half-sister. Her mother-in-law(let's call her Barbara...) had serious health problems for the past few months. Just this week, she fell into a coma. And today at 3:00 she finally passed away.

She had cancer.

She was a smoker.

What a shame.

My sister and her family were in grief. The hospital bed that they had in Barbara's little room was moved into the garage. It was terrible seeing it just sitting there as we walked up the driveway to ring the doorbell.

I find myself normally very good at keeping my self cool, calm, and collected, but I admit - it was rather hard this time. I used that technique that almost everyone does - blinking of the eyes, searching for pictures in the grooves of the ceiling, and thinking "oh, my, what a pretty fake plant".

What made me want to break down, was their pitbull puppy. This puppy was very close to Barbara, and when I looked into the eyes of this puppy, I could see how he must have understand everything. He could sense something was out of place. It was heartbreaking. The eyes were so deep and seemed to go on forever!

This incredible woman made an effort to keep going on forever. She pushed until her last breath. Four days in a coma. She was apparently in tremendous pain.

Prayers well appreciated.