Dec. 09, 2007 ~ Brother-in-Law
Husband's brother has had Multiple Sclerosis for as long as I've known him, which is over 27 years. He has always fought it, doing everything he could not to let it get him down. When the doctor told him it would be good for him to swim in a heated pool every day, he had one installed. For several years, it seemed to make a difference. When he learned of a new experimental treatment available only overseas, he and Sister-in-Law flew to Germany where he took the treatment. He continued the treatments at home, giving himself injections until they were no longer available. When he heard that bee stings might bring pain relief and restore damaged nerves, he tried that, too. Yes, really. He volunteered to be stung by bees. Horse therapy? Did that. It helped. And of course he did whatever the doctors told him, most of the time. He did not complain or ask "Why me?"
So it came as quite a shock yesterday... when he died of a heart attack.
He had no known history of heart problems, though he did smoke for many years, before he gave it up. And his father died of a heart attack. Still. It was a shock. I guess I thought he would outlive us all. Husband is having a hard time, and BIL's children are stunned. No one is ever ready to lose their parent, and they have already lost their mother. So now they have only each other. Luckily, they do have wonderful husbands, and children. Uncles and aunts, and cousins.
We did not go to church today. We had planned to usher, and Husband was not up to that, all the smiling and being happy when he didn't feel happy at all. Pastor came over right after church, which was very kind of him. He told me to take as much time off from work this week as I needed. Again, very kind. At this point, though, Husband and I are both planning to work until the day of the funeral (arrangements still pending), and then we will see.
It will seem strange, having no more phone calls, that cheerful voice asking to speak to "His Bubba."
Here is something I always like to read at times of loss.
The Ship
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, there she goes!�
Gone Where? Gone from my sight� that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, �There she goes!� there are other eyes watching her coming and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, �There she comes!�
Henry Jackson Van Dyke (1852-1933)
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