The Aging

Life is like a short breath or a bird in it's flight.

Soon it passes away and is gone from our sight.

Like a vapor it is in the Bible we're told...

From the recesses of my mind this song comes.

On my recent trip home I found myself looking around at my family in surprise. Here I sit with my granddaughter in my arms, my children grown and married, my sisters with their grandchildren in their laps, nephew and nieces and my own mother and Aunt Jean beautiful in their latter years. Where does it go?

This is the sweetest time of my life. Everyone together and healthy. But what of the others? Are they longing for younger years or struggling to learn to walk? Are they looking toward their futures or remembering their pasts?

Life is quick. Fleeting.

Watching the news this year I have often wondered if our planet is aging quickly herself. Was it, like us, born with a time line? Was is young once and energetic, learning to walk and run and function beautifully?

She seems to suffer at the moment. Overpopulation. Flood. Earthquake. Tsunami. Extreme heat and cold. Deforestation. Disease. We hear almost daily of natural disasters in various countries, including our own, holes in the ozone and melting polar ice caps. She seems to be attacked from without and within.

Maybe it has always been this way. Maybe. Maybe not.

It makes sense to me that as we all are born, grow up and fade away that so does everything else. Including our planet.

If so, then what? What is next?

On Friday I talked with one of my patients for a while. He is a gruff old cuss who is slowly succumbing to his disease. I have know him for six months and we usually talk about the weather or his disease or my traveling or his memories of being in the service during war. But on Friday he leaned over to me and said in a whisper that he had died at Christmas. He said his heart stopped three different time before he could be stabilized. When I said I was sorry he said don't be.

He said it was beautiful. Green hills, warm sunshine. A feeling of freedom and peace and exploding joy. He saw his wife and his twin boys that were lost years before. He talked with his old vet buddies before coming back to what he calls hell. He says hell for him is this life and this old and cancerous body. Someday, he says, he will go to heaven and not ever come back.

Life is like a short breath....

Like a vapor it is....

Being an oncology nurse has taught me to live while I'm living.

Being a follower of Christ compels me to ask you the question, Where will go when it's over?

Father for those suffering in this world in the wake of this latest disaster, be near.