A Time to Die..

To everything there is a season

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born and a time to die.

..............

A time to weep and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance.

................

I have seen the travail, 

which God hath given to the sons of men 

to be exercised in it.

My mom has passed.  It still doesn't seem real.  I have struggled with her for so long, and it was so time consuming that I can't quite remember how I filled these big gaps of time in my day before she got sick.  Then again I look at my weed patch of a garden and my war battered children and I remember a time that was better. A time when the children and I sat and read for hours on end, or talked around the fire, a time when we laughed just because it felt good to do so.... ah, I will find that again.  I will treasure it more.

"Exercised" is a good word to describe the last year of our lives.  We've been stretched and pulled until some days I thought we would break.  But the Lord was ever faithful and we have emerged all the better for it. He is so good, so very good to me.

I should write more, but I am just too tired to relive it.  I will just say that because of her alcoholism she drank until she shrunk her brain, and could no longer walk or talk, she drank until she killed her bone marrow and could no longer produce white blood cells, she drank until she killed her liver and kidneys and ammonia built up in her system... and then when we thought we had all of that manageable she had a stroke and died.  

Any teen that thinks drinking is cool should have to spend a day caring for one such as my mother. They should change diapers or try to feed her and watch her choke as her brain struggles to remember how to preform the simple task of swallowing.   They should be forced to see where drinking REALLY leaves you.  I have a poem some where that my dad wrote about being a drunk.. He too died from booze.  Five years ago, almost to the day.

I'll find it and post it, just not today. Today, I and my children are going to get reacquainted...

I hope the sun shines.