Last week we lost two dear friends in a plane crash. They were such an amazing couple, always doing for others!!! I was honored to speak at their Celebration of Life ceremony along with three others. Here is what I had to say.
Scripture tells us that one day one of the teachers of the law came and heard Jesus visiting with some of the Sadducees and then asked Jesus, "Of all the commandments which is the most important?"
"The most important one", answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."
Today's language -- Love God, Love One Another!
And you see, loving one another is just the natural flow of our love of God. This is how we 'flesh out' our declared love.
Ivan and Adina did this. They indeed loved God and family and friends and employees and community. Their examples for all of us remind us that we do well to care for others, care for one another.
One day a few years ago I was visiting someone in the nursing home. While walking to her room, I glanced up and saw Ivan coming down the hallway. I said, "Hi Ivan! What are you doing here?" He was visiting a dear lady whom he had known as a child. He had heard her health was failing.
I knew this woman and stopped by after my other visit. She smiled and said, "Did you see Ivan? He was here and prayed with me." She was so pleased.
Ivan was a very busy business man! Yet, he made the effort, took the time to bless others. And he did this without fanfare, without desire of recognition, without wanting a pat on the back. It just was who he was.
Adina was just as benevolent. Quietly, she did for others without requiring attention for doing it. Both of them were involved with serving causes that helped those in need.
Many years ago I was giving chemo to a cowboy patient of mine, one of my favorites. He got quiet and then asked me if I'd thought about what kind of footprints I wanted to leave on Earth. He said he had been thinking about this since he had been diagnosed with cancer and then again when he and his wife attended a funeral service for a neighbor. He said that man was always doing something for somebody else: giving them milk from his dairy, giving them fresh tomatoes from his garden, stopping to help anyone who had a flat tire...the list goes on. He said there were so many wanting to get up in that service and tell what this man had done for them. He said he started thinking about who might stand up for him.
He went on to tell me about how he would go to church and sit on the back pew and only give a couple of dollars and then 'high tail it out of there' before the preacher reached the back pew after the sermon was over. And that he imagined that his neighbor to the west of his farm only heard him cussing his cows and that he wasn't too good about telling his wife or his children that he loved them or appreciated them. He said he would hide when his mother-n-law came over for a visit.
He said, "Becki, I think I'm going to drive over to my neighbor's house and thank him for chopping the ice on my pond last winter when I didn't have the strength to swing an axe. He just got out there in those freezing temperatures and did that for me without saying a word. I hope I'd done the same for him. And I'm going to start having supper with my kids and my wife at the table instead of eating on my Roy Rogers TV tray in front of the television. They are good kids and I need to tell them so and that goes for the wife as well. But to be honest with ya about warming up to my Mother-n-law real soon. That'll take some time. And I'm going to go to that church house and sit up closer to the front and give that preacher more money and let him shake my hand."
I pulled him up close after I finished giving the chemo and told him that I thought he had just left Golden Footprints in that outpatient oncology unit that day. All the other patients and their families were blotting their eyes. Samuel just got up, put his sweat stained cowboy hat on, nodded at each family and headed to the elevator.
In my eyes, Ivan and Adina also left Golden Footprints here: in our little hometown of Pryor, Oklahoma, across the continents to a mission they supported, and in all our hearts. They especially left the best of examples to their four sons. I can already see they will continue leaving exemplary footprints as well.
We, dear ones, are beautiful souls who are here for a very brief time even if we live to be 110. We are here learning how to love one another more, continue growing ever nearer to God.
I couldn't help but wonder what they would say from their new vantage point.
Perhaps:
Love one another unconditionally!
Cling to nothing in this material world. For the only thing we take with us is the love woven into our soul's DNA, if you will, of how we have treated one another.
Never doubt that you are here with great purpose. No one is accidentally born.
Forgive others, forgive yourself. It's healing.
Get to know God!! You will never regret that.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
WE ARE ONE
This Thursday, October 24th, is Global Oneness Day and United Nations Day. I love this!! Why?
Patients have taught me over and over that as we are dying, we are the same. Whether I am climbing marble steps to a mansion or concrete blocks to a mobile home, the needs when I arrive are essentially the same.
These are some of the questions they ask:
Can you keep me comfortable: physically, emotionally, spiritually? Even if I'm still fighting pain in my heart, my soul, my mind?
Does God really love even me? Even if I'm not perfect? Even if I'm a society outcast? Even if I'm still trying to forgive someone? Even if I haven't been in a church or synagogue in years?
Will I be alone when I die or will there be others from the other side come? Even if I'm not sure? Even if I.....?
You see, it doesn't matter how much money we have or how big our house is or how many degrees we've earned, or how poor we are or if we are homeless or if we haven't been educated. We are all connected. WE are all One Human Family.
We are on such a tiny planet when you consider the heavens and the vastness of all that is 'out there'. One very young man asked me one day, "Do you think there are aliens? And if you do, do you think they wonder at our violence to one another?"
We must wrap our hearts and brains around the notion of caring for all: each and every person, Mother Earth: her animals, the plant kingdom, the soil, the air, the waters, the rocks! We are the keepers, the guardians..yes, each one of us!
What will it take for us to lay our weapons down? I don't know for sure but I think it will include a massive scale of Love. I just know that as we die it doesn't matter if we are Democrat or Republican, Baptist or Jew, American or Aborigines, vegan or meat-eater...
We all have a heart, we all bleed, we all need Love. We all need to give Love.
Thursday pull out the kids' globe or get out the giant National Geographic World Map and then close your eyes and point to a spot. Open your eyes and then pray for that nation, study her people, etc. And teach the children to do the same.
God Loves Everyone!
He's got the whole world in His hands, He's got the whole wide world in His Hands...He's got you and me and brother in His hands, He's got the whole world in His hands. That what we sang in our little country church when I was a youngster. I still believe that!!
Patients have taught me over and over that as we are dying, we are the same. Whether I am climbing marble steps to a mansion or concrete blocks to a mobile home, the needs when I arrive are essentially the same.
These are some of the questions they ask:
Can you keep me comfortable: physically, emotionally, spiritually? Even if I'm still fighting pain in my heart, my soul, my mind?
Does God really love even me? Even if I'm not perfect? Even if I'm a society outcast? Even if I'm still trying to forgive someone? Even if I haven't been in a church or synagogue in years?
Will I be alone when I die or will there be others from the other side come? Even if I'm not sure? Even if I.....?
You see, it doesn't matter how much money we have or how big our house is or how many degrees we've earned, or how poor we are or if we are homeless or if we haven't been educated. We are all connected. WE are all One Human Family.
We are on such a tiny planet when you consider the heavens and the vastness of all that is 'out there'. One very young man asked me one day, "Do you think there are aliens? And if you do, do you think they wonder at our violence to one another?"
We must wrap our hearts and brains around the notion of caring for all: each and every person, Mother Earth: her animals, the plant kingdom, the soil, the air, the waters, the rocks! We are the keepers, the guardians..yes, each one of us!
What will it take for us to lay our weapons down? I don't know for sure but I think it will include a massive scale of Love. I just know that as we die it doesn't matter if we are Democrat or Republican, Baptist or Jew, American or Aborigines, vegan or meat-eater...
We all have a heart, we all bleed, we all need Love. We all need to give Love.
Thursday pull out the kids' globe or get out the giant National Geographic World Map and then close your eyes and point to a spot. Open your eyes and then pray for that nation, study her people, etc. And teach the children to do the same.
God Loves Everyone!
He's got the whole world in His hands, He's got the whole wide world in His Hands...He's got you and me and brother in His hands, He's got the whole world in His hands. That what we sang in our little country church when I was a youngster. I still believe that!!
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
No Guarantees
I was on my way for my first visit with Susan. It was her first full day being home, away from the hospital in seven months. Her primary nurse and medical team at the hospital had requested that we "become acquainted" since we would be located closer to her for minor problems or questions.
She was not exactly the patient I wanted to visit. I wasn't sure how I was going to emotionally deal with this one. She was our daughter's age. It had been predicted the night of her accident that she would never live long enough to get to a major trauma center. But, she did.
I was sorting these thoughts and emotions around in my head and my heart as I drove to her Mom's home. A well-groomed black and silver schnauzer answered the doorbell with barking and bouncing and dancing in circles until Susan's Mom opened the door.
"Come on in! You will have to excuse us today. We are getting adjusted to settling down with hospital equipment, a bed, oxygen, etc. being delivered. We only arrived home a few hours ago and there have been people coming and going, bringing food, delivering medications,...well, you know all this I'm sure. This isn't your first rodeo. Please forgive my rambling and come inside." She pleasantly said.
"Susan Honey, this is the nurse from the agency your doctor called about coming to see us and check on you and getting to know each other. If you two will excuse me I need to get some linens out of the dryer for that hospital bed. We prefer sheets that are soft and pretty. We've had enough of that white and scratchy kind!"
So over the next hour I explained what we would be doing each visit, how we could be of assistance to Susan and her Mom, that we would check her vital signs and educate her about her medications, safety measures,...the routine introduction. Susan smiled and nodded and was polite. But her eyes would really light up when her little brother, about three years old, appeared in the room and would crawl up as close to her as he could to give her a kiss and then she would bend over slightly and pull him near and air kiss him too. He behaved as if his sister had always been in a wheelchair, dancing around it and touching her ever so often to 'connect' again with an exchange of gentle hugs.
The noise level was up there with the barking, screaming back and forth of family members and visitors, and the delivery men. I was thinking it may have been this noisy before the accident, with a not too extraordinary family full of love and life just living this time and space call Today...Now.
It's true. We aren't guaranteed with the birth certificate of our children that they will outlive us, always be healthy or happy, and become adults with the careers we'd hoped for or dreamed about.
Several weeks later Susan's Mom was visiting with me over paperwork and ice tea. "Becki, it is good to make time to rock a baby without hurrying, answer pleas for another story with a smile, go outside and play with the toddlers and not worry about when we will get the laundry done. Whether they are fighting an illness, an injury, or a heartache or even if they are fit as a fiddle, they all need to be reminded of how precious they are to us. And that they are here with great purpose. No one is an accident. I'm not sure that we can hug them too much."
She was not exactly the patient I wanted to visit. I wasn't sure how I was going to emotionally deal with this one. She was our daughter's age. It had been predicted the night of her accident that she would never live long enough to get to a major trauma center. But, she did.
I was sorting these thoughts and emotions around in my head and my heart as I drove to her Mom's home. A well-groomed black and silver schnauzer answered the doorbell with barking and bouncing and dancing in circles until Susan's Mom opened the door.
"Come on in! You will have to excuse us today. We are getting adjusted to settling down with hospital equipment, a bed, oxygen, etc. being delivered. We only arrived home a few hours ago and there have been people coming and going, bringing food, delivering medications,...well, you know all this I'm sure. This isn't your first rodeo. Please forgive my rambling and come inside." She pleasantly said.
"Susan Honey, this is the nurse from the agency your doctor called about coming to see us and check on you and getting to know each other. If you two will excuse me I need to get some linens out of the dryer for that hospital bed. We prefer sheets that are soft and pretty. We've had enough of that white and scratchy kind!"
So over the next hour I explained what we would be doing each visit, how we could be of assistance to Susan and her Mom, that we would check her vital signs and educate her about her medications, safety measures,...the routine introduction. Susan smiled and nodded and was polite. But her eyes would really light up when her little brother, about three years old, appeared in the room and would crawl up as close to her as he could to give her a kiss and then she would bend over slightly and pull him near and air kiss him too. He behaved as if his sister had always been in a wheelchair, dancing around it and touching her ever so often to 'connect' again with an exchange of gentle hugs.
The noise level was up there with the barking, screaming back and forth of family members and visitors, and the delivery men. I was thinking it may have been this noisy before the accident, with a not too extraordinary family full of love and life just living this time and space call Today...Now.
It's true. We aren't guaranteed with the birth certificate of our children that they will outlive us, always be healthy or happy, and become adults with the careers we'd hoped for or dreamed about.
Several weeks later Susan's Mom was visiting with me over paperwork and ice tea. "Becki, it is good to make time to rock a baby without hurrying, answer pleas for another story with a smile, go outside and play with the toddlers and not worry about when we will get the laundry done. Whether they are fighting an illness, an injury, or a heartache or even if they are fit as a fiddle, they all need to be reminded of how precious they are to us. And that they are here with great purpose. No one is an accident. I'm not sure that we can hug them too much."
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Always Connected
One of the very best gifts from the speaking engagement with the NHNE-NDE (New Heaven New Earth - Near Death Experiences) lovely souls I did in Sedona, Arizona last year that resulted in a you-tube video, is the wonderful emails I receive from some who need to ask, or need to share, about a NDE or how to sit at the bedside of a loved one, or one like this one I just recently received. I asked this young woman if I might share this story with you. She replied that I could share this with anyone I felt could benefit from it & definitely with anyone that might be able to shed some light on this subject.
Her elderly Father has Alzheimer's/Dementia and is now in a nursing home. He varies from day to day on his ability to have clear conversation. He no longer remembers family members or their names. He has several children and if prompted by someone who mentions a first name of a child, he will smile proudly and add their middle name.
Her Mother passed away 10 years ago. This loss caused severe depression and withdrawal for her Father. She said she believes that this was what sent him spiraling into his current condition. Physically he is healthy, mental...not so much.
Approximately four weeks ago, her youngest sister, the baby of the family passed away very unexpectedly in her sleep between 2 and 3am. on Sunday morning. She was in her thirty's with no known health issues.
At 6:30am on that Sunday morning, her Father's caregiver went in to wake him up for breakfast. He was very agitated, crying and upset. She asked him what was wrong and he began to tell the caregiver, in detail, about the death of this, "tall, lovely, young lady with long, dark hair". The caregiver, knowing nothing about what had happened only hours before, comforted him. She asked him if this frightened him. He replied, "No, it was beautiful."
The family had a meeting the day their sister passed and had agreed that there was no need for their Father to ever know that his youngest daughter had passed.
Monday a granddaughter went to visit her Grandfather and found him visibly upset as he began to tell her about the passing of the tall, lovely young lady with the long dark hair. She asked him how he knew this. He looked at her and said, "I was there!"
Tuesday two brothers went to visit their Father. he told them the same things he had told the caregiver and his granddaughter. This time he told his sons the same story but with much greater detail than before. They did an audio recording of some of his conversation.
Wednesday the author of this sharing visited her Father (with one of her brothers) for the first time since their sister's passing. She writes this, "As I approached him, sitting in the nursing home dining room, I came up from behind him. His jaw was tight and clenched and as he turned to me I could see that he had been crying. He immediately asked me if I knew what had happened to that girl. I stayed with him several hours both captivated and stunned by his story. I wanted to stay to try to lend comfort and support for him but I also had to hear every detail he had to offer, especially since our sister's death is still a mystery to us. He told me in vivid detail that she had been out with her husband for dinner for about 5-6 hours prior to going home and going to bed the night/morning she passed. He told me that she passed in her sleep and was not aware of what was happening. He gave details about her husband's physical and verbal reaction when he found her not breathing. He even showed me the exact position she was lying in at the time she passed. (I was not aware of the legitimacy of these details at the time of our conversation, but did later verify this with my sister's husband to his great shock.) Dad said, "She was gone, and when I say gone, I mean she was damn gone! There wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it!" As his story continued, he explained to me that he was standing, talking to, 'peoople that he knew and that knew him by name'. He said he looked out and saw her leaving...as being in the water, the ocean, as though she was being pulled out by a rapid tide. He explained this in a verbal and physical manner that I can not properly explain in written words. With tears he explains that he wanted to go get her, to save her, but knew there was no way to reach her. He explains he watched this until she was so far out he could barely see her. He says he then left and doesn't ever want to return to that place again."
She continued to say that during part of their conversation with their Father he seemed for a long period of time to be searching for their sister's name. Finally her brother said her name and their Dad sat up straight, saying, Yes! and then repeating her name, the name he always called her.
She said that hearing her name seemed to give him even more clarity and he once again broke down, crying. During some conversations with various people, he also spoke of his daughter, as she was leaving, as having been with a very cute little boy and stated that he believes that the little boy is probably dead too. She said that she can't make a connection to anything with this particular detail.
She said that these conversations have also been intertwined with their Dad telling them what he felt and thought that this daughter that passed was a wonderful, giving young lady.
On the day I received this email she said that two days ago she saw her Dad and his memory or need to discuss this had faded. She said that she has never brought the subject up to him but has discussed it (mostly listened) whenever he brings it up. She said that during their most recent conversation he asked her how many children she had. She told him and wide-eyed, he exclaimed, "7?" And she said and you have 11.
"Yes," he said, and with tears, "but now I've lost one, the tall, beautiful girl with long, dark hair. Did you know her?"
She closed with the following:
"My Dad has extreme difficulty with all aspects of memory, both recent and distant now. He also can not carry on a detailed, coherent conversation for more than a few minutes at a time. He can not remember any events and absolutely no details even a day later. His clarity, detail, understanding and length of time that he was able to retain and retell this story is completely astounding to me."
I, too, sat spell-bound as I read her account. I wrote back and thanked her for sharing this and expressed my condolences for their loss. I mentioned Raymond Moody's book titled, Glimpses of Eternity, Sharing A Loved One's Passage From This Life To The Next. Perhaps her Dad's spirit was with her sister.
I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters. I have had patients and some of my own family members share NDE's, but none like this.
A friend of mine said that this story is very illustrative of the fact that those who have Alzheimer's are not as out of touch as it might seem. They are simply active on another plane and not tied into this realm. My friend believes that this daughter who passed did let her Dad know that all is well...and it is.
Her elderly Father has Alzheimer's/Dementia and is now in a nursing home. He varies from day to day on his ability to have clear conversation. He no longer remembers family members or their names. He has several children and if prompted by someone who mentions a first name of a child, he will smile proudly and add their middle name.
Her Mother passed away 10 years ago. This loss caused severe depression and withdrawal for her Father. She said she believes that this was what sent him spiraling into his current condition. Physically he is healthy, mental...not so much.
Approximately four weeks ago, her youngest sister, the baby of the family passed away very unexpectedly in her sleep between 2 and 3am. on Sunday morning. She was in her thirty's with no known health issues.
At 6:30am on that Sunday morning, her Father's caregiver went in to wake him up for breakfast. He was very agitated, crying and upset. She asked him what was wrong and he began to tell the caregiver, in detail, about the death of this, "tall, lovely, young lady with long, dark hair". The caregiver, knowing nothing about what had happened only hours before, comforted him. She asked him if this frightened him. He replied, "No, it was beautiful."
The family had a meeting the day their sister passed and had agreed that there was no need for their Father to ever know that his youngest daughter had passed.
Monday a granddaughter went to visit her Grandfather and found him visibly upset as he began to tell her about the passing of the tall, lovely young lady with the long dark hair. She asked him how he knew this. He looked at her and said, "I was there!"
Tuesday two brothers went to visit their Father. he told them the same things he had told the caregiver and his granddaughter. This time he told his sons the same story but with much greater detail than before. They did an audio recording of some of his conversation.
Wednesday the author of this sharing visited her Father (with one of her brothers) for the first time since their sister's passing. She writes this, "As I approached him, sitting in the nursing home dining room, I came up from behind him. His jaw was tight and clenched and as he turned to me I could see that he had been crying. He immediately asked me if I knew what had happened to that girl. I stayed with him several hours both captivated and stunned by his story. I wanted to stay to try to lend comfort and support for him but I also had to hear every detail he had to offer, especially since our sister's death is still a mystery to us. He told me in vivid detail that she had been out with her husband for dinner for about 5-6 hours prior to going home and going to bed the night/morning she passed. He told me that she passed in her sleep and was not aware of what was happening. He gave details about her husband's physical and verbal reaction when he found her not breathing. He even showed me the exact position she was lying in at the time she passed. (I was not aware of the legitimacy of these details at the time of our conversation, but did later verify this with my sister's husband to his great shock.) Dad said, "She was gone, and when I say gone, I mean she was damn gone! There wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it!" As his story continued, he explained to me that he was standing, talking to, 'peoople that he knew and that knew him by name'. He said he looked out and saw her leaving...as being in the water, the ocean, as though she was being pulled out by a rapid tide. He explained this in a verbal and physical manner that I can not properly explain in written words. With tears he explains that he wanted to go get her, to save her, but knew there was no way to reach her. He explains he watched this until she was so far out he could barely see her. He says he then left and doesn't ever want to return to that place again."
She continued to say that during part of their conversation with their Father he seemed for a long period of time to be searching for their sister's name. Finally her brother said her name and their Dad sat up straight, saying, Yes! and then repeating her name, the name he always called her.
She said that hearing her name seemed to give him even more clarity and he once again broke down, crying. During some conversations with various people, he also spoke of his daughter, as she was leaving, as having been with a very cute little boy and stated that he believes that the little boy is probably dead too. She said that she can't make a connection to anything with this particular detail.
She said that these conversations have also been intertwined with their Dad telling them what he felt and thought that this daughter that passed was a wonderful, giving young lady.
On the day I received this email she said that two days ago she saw her Dad and his memory or need to discuss this had faded. She said that she has never brought the subject up to him but has discussed it (mostly listened) whenever he brings it up. She said that during their most recent conversation he asked her how many children she had. She told him and wide-eyed, he exclaimed, "7?" And she said and you have 11.
"Yes," he said, and with tears, "but now I've lost one, the tall, beautiful girl with long, dark hair. Did you know her?"
She closed with the following:
"My Dad has extreme difficulty with all aspects of memory, both recent and distant now. He also can not carry on a detailed, coherent conversation for more than a few minutes at a time. He can not remember any events and absolutely no details even a day later. His clarity, detail, understanding and length of time that he was able to retain and retell this story is completely astounding to me."
I, too, sat spell-bound as I read her account. I wrote back and thanked her for sharing this and expressed my condolences for their loss. I mentioned Raymond Moody's book titled, Glimpses of Eternity, Sharing A Loved One's Passage From This Life To The Next. Perhaps her Dad's spirit was with her sister.
I do not pretend to be an expert in these matters. I have had patients and some of my own family members share NDE's, but none like this.
A friend of mine said that this story is very illustrative of the fact that those who have Alzheimer's are not as out of touch as it might seem. They are simply active on another plane and not tied into this realm. My friend believes that this daughter who passed did let her Dad know that all is well...and it is.
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