Fast Falls the Eventide

a few days ago my younger brother passed away.  my sister's husband called early in the morning to let me know, and at first i couldn't believe what i was hearing.  he had been battling a number of health problems, the latest of which was some breathing difficulties.  apparently his doctors didn't think this difficulty was life threatening, and his death might have been from another cause.  he was severely underweight and had a heart attack a few months ago.  my sister had been staying with him for a couple of nights before his death and heard him gasping for air in the early hours of the morning.  by the time she got to him, he had died.

tomorrow, we'll travel to the town where he and my sister lived for a wake in his memory.  he has been cremated, and his son will take his ashes to be scattered at sea, because he had worked for many years on an ocean-going boat and had traveled all over the world.  my nephew plans to have a marker erected in the cemetery where my brother's wife is buried.  one of my jobs today is to call relatives to let them know of his death and the wake, though most of them will be unable to attend because of the distances involved in traveling to it.

while i am sad that my brother is no longer with us, i'm glad that his suffering is over.  he has struggled for so many years, most of them living alone and far from family.  his son lived about an hour from him, but he had a family of his own to care for and a long commute to work every day, making it difficult for him to see his father as often as he'd have liked.  it was a six-hour drive for me to reach him, and my sister lived seven hours from him.  he had moved to where my sister lived about three months ago, and they were enjoying each other's company most every day.  i'm so glad they had those few months to be with one another and that he had someone to share his problems with for that brief time.

his passing brought the fragility of our lives home to me.  i had told myself that he would outlive me, though i knew deep down that he couldn't hold out much longer, given the health battles he was fighting.  his death has forced me to think of my own mortality and to make better plans for what needs to be done for my family's benefit when i'm gone.  i'm thinking of the difficulties my nephew faces, since none of us expected his father to go so soon.  he has his dad's few possessions to dispose of, his dad's two dogs to find homes for, all his business affairs to sort out, knowing next to nothing about those affairs, all of this while accompanied by his wife and two small children and much of it having to be taken care of within a five day span before he and his family have to make the seven hour drive back home.  there's little anyone else can do to relieve him of those responsibilities, though my sister and her husband are there to help in any way they can.

may we do what we can to plan for our lives' end.  may we think not only of ourselves but of those we will leave behind, doing what we can to make things as easy on them as possible.  may we accept the inevitability of our mortality and live as though each moment might be our last.  may we find peace in both life and death.  shalom.