Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

There was just not enough time on the weekend. On Saturday, I went to my PT appointment and then spent a good art of the day running messenger duty to my wife who was doing a big pre-wedding party for Katie Thomas. I then also picked up my dad, took him up to where I think my mother’s grave site is, and then took him to lunch. We had a nice time together. By the time at got back home in the evening, it was 6pm and the sunlight was gone for the day. So much didn’t get done at home, but I did spend important time with important people, namely my father. Still, the weekend went too fast.

Today we had the funeral services for my mother. It was a moving experience for me and helped me to come to some completion about the passing of my mother. It is hard to believe that she is really gone. It does provide a sense of finality and completion. My mother was a wonderful woman. She was not famous, she was not well known, and held no great position. She was the center of so many lives though, and she was a very gracious person. Thank you Lord for providing me a sense of finality and completion.

It’s with great personal sadness that I announce to all of my many blogging friends that my mother passed away last night just before midnight. She will be missed by my family and particularly myself. She was an anchor in my world that will be sorely missed. I am glad that she can now rest in peace.

There comes a time when we all go home to that God who made us and who fathered us, and who loves us. We that are left behind feel the pain of that parting. It is not an easy thing to do and I am not sure that what we are able to do is adequate.

However, my mother went home tonight to that God who had made her. She was ready. The thing that touched me was that she waited for me to come home. When we left to go on the cruise at the first part of the month, I told mom that we would be home in 12 days. I had no reason to believe that I was going to see her alive again.

During the course of the cruise I had the chance to speak to her twice. Once, we were leaving port and then again a week later in St Thomas I spoke to hear and I know that she recognized my voice. I really had no hope that she would be alive when we got home. Several times during the cruise it appeared that she was ready to move to the next world. Still, she held on.

This morning I had no reason she would be alive. We checked in once we reached port and were departing the ship and she was holding, and I was told that she was steady and holding for me. She was waiting. She had been told I would be home later in the day. We got home from our flights and she was still with us. We rushed home and she was still breathing. I told her that we were home. In a few moments we gave her a blessing after Jeff had talked to her and we released her from this life. By 11:57, she had passed on to the next life. I think she waited until we were all home and reported in before she felt that she could pass from this life and go home to that God that had made her. What a special experience this was for me.

One of my favorite things to do while on a cruise is to get up and watch the sun rise whether it is on the open sea or in a port of call. Today, Friday the 16th of December was no different. It was a beautiful sunrise with clouds framing a sun that found a way to peek over the horizon and then hide behind a cloud bank and then popped forth in all of its glory again a moment later. I could do this every day and rarely, when at sea, miss a chance to see the sun rise.

My revelry this morning was tempered by the thought of my mother, many of thousands of miles away, laying in a bed at our home, going through the work of dying. Sickness has ravaged her body, she is tired of the fight, but continues to fight on like a prize fighter. I talked to her yesterday by phone from St. Thomas and had a chance to connect one more time with her before she passes on. She may, or may not be alive when I arrive home on Sunday.

Sunsets happen to each of us. We work mightily while the day is hot to accomplish the many tasks, some minor, some major, some maybe of doubtless worth, while the day is young and the sun is hot. We grow up, find that special someone and marry, raise families, and find a life’s work. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we are not, and many times we have to pick ourselves up off the floor and try again.

Soon we enter the golden sunset of our lives, supposedly the time when we will have time to enjoy travel, visit the kids and grandkids, and pass beyond the world of work. More often than not we also discover sicknesses and frailties that we haven’t had and we begin the slow decline and fight for our lives. Eventually comes that sunset time when life begins to ebb away and we pass on.

That is where the sunrise this morning gave me comfort. Sitting on that deck, I was thinking of my mother. I was thinking of the fine life she has lead. It has been a simple life. She has not been friends with the high and mighty of this earth. She has not been recognized in front of tens, hundreds, or even thousands for her accomplishments. Yet, she has lived what I consider to be am exemplary life. She has raised a good family, one with children who love her and who have tried to raise families they way she raised her. She has grandchildren who love to visit with her and who love her like their own parents. What greater tribute can there be for parents than to have children who want to be like them and raise their families like them. What more can you take with you than the love of your family, who will sorely miss you because of who you are, not because of what title you have or how many earthly possessions you might leave them. Finally, what more can you ask than to have that Heavenly Father say to you, well done my good and faithful servant, enter into the rest of your father and Lord.

I am sure that my mother will have this experience, to be told she has been a good and faithful servant. She will enter a glorious sunrise of eternal peace and happiness when she returns to her father in heaven, and there meets her mother, her father, her brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, in-laws, and all relationships that have defined her life on this earth. The work on this earth, the trouble, the happiness, will all have been proven to be for her good. She will still work hard, but will work with a sure knowledge that others in her family, her husband, her children, her grandchildren and family will someday join her in a family relationship that will never die. What greater sunrise could any of us ask for, to have a savior who has made all of this possible and a loving father who came up with the plan for us to return to his presence and have eternal life.

I am on a death watch. My family home in Utah is on a death watch. We share the same concern. The person who probably had more influence on my family than anyone else, my mother, is in the last minutes of her life. She has been a stalwart of our family, the one we all turned to when we were young to sooth our hurts. When I was worried about losing my one true love to another, it was her who calmed my fears and assured me that whatever happened would be according to God’s will and would be for my good. Luckily, I got the girl.

She has been the one proud of my accomplishments, willing to brag me up but never to not support me in all good things. She is now fighting for her life, and she will lose. I have no doubt that when the day comes when she is judged according the mercies of almighty God, she will not be found wanting. I love my mother. I wish her well in this new adventure that I only have a hint of.

Well, the gang is all here. Hopefully, during the Thanksgiving Holiday we will have everyone here. We will have all of the kids, all of the grandkids, and maybe even some extended family. We are going to have Mom and Dad Hardy here. They live with us and it is a special season in my life. Yes, the gang is all here.

I have found that for me the toughest part of taking care of my parents is sleeping. My mother needs constant attention and during the night needs to sometimes get up to visit the ladies room. We have come full circle, in that I now have to listen for them, much like we listened for our newborns when they first were on this earth. It means you don’t sleep very deep or very long. It also means you are more tired than normal. It is worth it though.

Tomorrow I will be going full circle in my life. I started my life living with my parents who so lovingly brought me into this world and then raised me and allowed me to have a family of my own. Now, due to the aging process, they have come to the point where they need my help and my families help. They will be moving back in with me.

We have a full circle of life. We are dependent, then struggle to become in independent. We become independent and struggle to stay that way. Eventually, we become dependent on our loved ones because of age. It is a humbling experience for all of the parties that are part of this great experience that comes to all of the members of the human family. God teaches us in many strange and wonderful ways. I am hoping that I to can measure up to taking care of and loving my parents.

The weather this fall has been so nice. However, all of this nice weather and the golden leaves and the change of the season has been tempered by human winter. I have been, for the last two months, witnessing the death of a parent. In a way, this is a blessing because it prepares me for that inevitable transition to winter in my life.

However, it also makes me sad to know that I am now, at 60, moving to the twilight of my life. I can see that I am less useful, less vital, then I have been before. Those in their middle years look at me as a has been and not able to contribute as I did. I see them overlooking me.

Finally, I know that I am probably never going to be this good again. There is a slow but undeniable move down that long slippery slope to old age and inevitably to death. It is a hard to thing to face sometimes, but a necessary thing. I hope I measure up to that.