I know I haven't been blogging much lately, sorry. I have been very busy of late and most of the time it's a very good kind of busy, except this week.
This week has been rough, good, bad, and rough.
One of the families in our life group has faced what no young family should ever have to face. Yet they have faced it with grace and courage. Nathan suffered with cancer for four long years. He was diagnosed the day after his baby daughter was born. His cancer was head and neck, specifically in the sinuses. His wife, my friend Sara, is such a strong and sweet woman. She has the best and most contagious laugh of anyone I've ever met and is unafraid of laughter even in times such as these.
Nathan's condition worsened and essentially became untreatable earlier this year. After surgery to attempt to stop the spread into his brain his mental status began to change along with his physical. Sara certainly had some challenges with two small children and a husband who sometimes just wasn't the man she married.
Hospice was called in a few weeks back and this past week he became to deteroriate fairly quickly. Sunday I dropped the kids off at church and a friend watched over them from class to service while I joined many from our life group to sit with Sara and Nathan. I wish you could have been a fly on the wall...Nathan had his hospital bed in their room. He had been unresponsive since sometime Friday night but Sara, on the cot with a blow up mattress next to him, continued to talk to him and laugh with him as we all surrounded her. When one person would leave that poor blow up mattress with pop another person up in the air...it had to be aired up again since there was up to five people sitting/laying on it at a time. We laid hands on her, hugged her and held her while she held his hand. We shared stories, laughed and sometimes just got plain silly. Nathan's vitals improved some and what seemed like the inevitable in a short time began to look questionable...he seemed to be rebounding. Sara called him a turkey. She wanted him to let go...she didn't want him to starve, didn't want him to suffer, didn't want him to be in pain anymore. But she also said that was just like Nathan...stubborn man.
After everyone left, about 9:30 or so, Sara went to shower and another friend and I started cleaning up...dishes, laundry and things while the hospice nurse sat with Nathan. I went into Sara's daughter's room to clean and before I knew it my friend was in there telling me he was gone. Just like that. He was gone. He just simply stopped breathing.It was as though he was really there enjoying the stories, the laughter, the joy at loving one another as a second family and once we were gone and he knew Sara and the kids would be taken care of he could let go. Sara sat and watched as his pulse in his neck stopped and then we all gave her her time to let all her emotions flow like the tears that ran down our faces. Her pain, her laying next to her husband, it is a memory, a pain and a sound I will never ever forget...and yet....
There is so much more....to witness the love she had for her husband and the courage she had to let him go. The knowledge she had that God was there with Nathan, loving him and surrounding him. Taking his broken body and throwing it away. Giving him a new heart and a place beside Jesus. The faith that Sara has knowing she will see him again in heaven. Nathan knowing that his family is taken care of through the brothers and sisters in christ, through the life group and the church family.
When my aunt died I remember thinking that she was so incredibly blessed to have such a huge family to love her and take care of her, wondering how those who didn't have that blessing handled such tragic times. Witnessing the love of Sara's family, church and worldly, I am almost speechless in wonder of how His plans for us really work out. Serving God by serving her was so evident and continues to be so evident in all the loving care she is receiving from all the women she has been lovingly calling her "mothers" the last few days. Making her sleep, making her eat, caring for her children. The days aren't over...the visitation is tonight and the service is tomorrow. Once these events are over and her extended family returns to their lives, she will still be without her Nathan. She will still be in her home without her husband and we will still be there for her. We will love on her, care for her, and watch over her because, as children of God, it is what we are here for
This week has been rough, good, bad, and rough.
One of the families in our life group has faced what no young family should ever have to face. Yet they have faced it with grace and courage. Nathan suffered with cancer for four long years. He was diagnosed the day after his baby daughter was born. His cancer was head and neck, specifically in the sinuses. His wife, my friend Sara, is such a strong and sweet woman. She has the best and most contagious laugh of anyone I've ever met and is unafraid of laughter even in times such as these.
Nathan's condition worsened and essentially became untreatable earlier this year. After surgery to attempt to stop the spread into his brain his mental status began to change along with his physical. Sara certainly had some challenges with two small children and a husband who sometimes just wasn't the man she married.
Hospice was called in a few weeks back and this past week he became to deteroriate fairly quickly. Sunday I dropped the kids off at church and a friend watched over them from class to service while I joined many from our life group to sit with Sara and Nathan. I wish you could have been a fly on the wall...Nathan had his hospital bed in their room. He had been unresponsive since sometime Friday night but Sara, on the cot with a blow up mattress next to him, continued to talk to him and laugh with him as we all surrounded her. When one person would leave that poor blow up mattress with pop another person up in the air...it had to be aired up again since there was up to five people sitting/laying on it at a time. We laid hands on her, hugged her and held her while she held his hand. We shared stories, laughed and sometimes just got plain silly. Nathan's vitals improved some and what seemed like the inevitable in a short time began to look questionable...he seemed to be rebounding. Sara called him a turkey. She wanted him to let go...she didn't want him to starve, didn't want him to suffer, didn't want him to be in pain anymore. But she also said that was just like Nathan...stubborn man.
After everyone left, about 9:30 or so, Sara went to shower and another friend and I started cleaning up...dishes, laundry and things while the hospice nurse sat with Nathan. I went into Sara's daughter's room to clean and before I knew it my friend was in there telling me he was gone. Just like that. He was gone. He just simply stopped breathing.It was as though he was really there enjoying the stories, the laughter, the joy at loving one another as a second family and once we were gone and he knew Sara and the kids would be taken care of he could let go. Sara sat and watched as his pulse in his neck stopped and then we all gave her her time to let all her emotions flow like the tears that ran down our faces. Her pain, her laying next to her husband, it is a memory, a pain and a sound I will never ever forget...and yet....
There is so much more....to witness the love she had for her husband and the courage she had to let him go. The knowledge she had that God was there with Nathan, loving him and surrounding him. Taking his broken body and throwing it away. Giving him a new heart and a place beside Jesus. The faith that Sara has knowing she will see him again in heaven. Nathan knowing that his family is taken care of through the brothers and sisters in christ, through the life group and the church family.
When my aunt died I remember thinking that she was so incredibly blessed to have such a huge family to love her and take care of her, wondering how those who didn't have that blessing handled such tragic times. Witnessing the love of Sara's family, church and worldly, I am almost speechless in wonder of how His plans for us really work out. Serving God by serving her was so evident and continues to be so evident in all the loving care she is receiving from all the women she has been lovingly calling her "mothers" the last few days. Making her sleep, making her eat, caring for her children. The days aren't over...the visitation is tonight and the service is tomorrow. Once these events are over and her extended family returns to their lives, she will still be without her Nathan. She will still be in her home without her husband and we will still be there for her. We will love on her, care for her, and watch over her because, as children of God, it is what we are here for
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