Death and Dying
        I have always been fascinated by this subject. It is a subject that each of us must deal with one day. It is a subject that families everywhere must face and deal with all the time. Being in my fifties, I sometimes wonder how many years do I have left and will I finish all of the work that I have undone. I think many times we take life for granite or think some people will never die. I believe I thought that about my mother. I thought that she would always be there just a phone call away if I needed comfort or advise about some problem that I was trying to handle. Then she was told by her doctor that if she did not have heart surgery she would only about two years left to live. My mother decided not to have the surgery because she knew as results of her diabetics that would mean going on dialysis. She felt this would lessen her quality of life and make her even more dependent on family members. Five years ago my mother left us. When ever I think of her I have to fight back my tears.
        I wonder when the time comes for me to face death how will I deal with this subject. I have often asked God to make that time very swift and painless as possible. An unexpected heart attack would be great. I do not wanted to suffer of be a burden on anyone. I often think of my ex-wife, my children mother who is sitting in a nurse home now for more than three years because of a single car accident in 2000. Will I ever have the courage to go and see her before either of us takes our last breath? I wonder given the quality of her life does she sometime wish she had died as the doctors thought she would have at the time of the accident.
        Every day we receive reports or death notices of people we know and do not know that has passed on hopefully to a better place. That is if they made their peace with God before they took their last breath.  When I was in high school all those many years a go even then I wonder about this subject because I lost one of my best friends to cancer at the young age of fifteen. Leroy was so young and full of life I could not believe that he was gone. I think it took about six months from the time it was discover until the time he past. I had never seen anything like this before. The closes situation I could recall that was similar was the death of my grandfather passing. He had battle strokes for years until they finally left him bed ridden and after number of years of just lying there unable to move, he finally died.
         The death of Leroy and my grandfather led to me later writing a poem entitle “What Thy Is it To Die,”… in thy spirit and in thy soul  and confine to a deep dark hole…the live balling and the dead are calling. I wonder who will be the next to answer the call. Will it be me or you and are we ready spiritually to answer the call?
David V. Laster
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