Time Passes—Things Change

Many years ago I used this same title in a chapter of the first book I wrote. It was fitting back then.  It still is.

While those four words could be used to explain anything and everything, especially in today's world where everything changes far too fast, today I am thinking of something very simple and very personal.

My eldest brother, Ed, is dying.  

Ed was five years older than me. While I sit and look at the multitude of photos my mother took of us two during my first five years of life, so when he was ages five to ten, I cannot really recall much about those photos.  What I do recall was that he picked on me my whole life, sometimes cruelly. 

Ed was never the "older brother" that most people think of having.  He was never my protector, my best friend, my confidant. But he was my brother, for better or worse.  You know what they say, you can pick your friends but not your family.

However, I do not write this to malign my brother, but rather to point out that even while never close, he was still my brother and as such, I love him.

Three years ago when I nearly died and was cognizant of that fact, I found such peace in knowing I could stop fighting.  My girls and grandkids were in God's hands anyway, right where they had always been. There was nothing I still "had" to do. My salvation was secure, my life was in order. I could just let go.  I never fought against it, it was okay.  I actually embraced and welcomed death.  Sometimes it is harder to fight the battles of life.  Ask me.

Ed is not there though.  He knows he is dying, knows he is down to a few days, accepts that it is coming, and yet he is afraid.  I wish I could give him the peace he needs.  I tried yesterday, but did not succeed.

When I go up to the hospital again tomorrow, I am going to pray with him and try to assure him that it is fine—God has this!  I will try to impart to him the peace he needs to just let go.

So yes, things change.  I will soon be the eldest sibling.  The little Wisconsin family will be down to four.   And we will probably go pretty much in the order of our births, barring something catastrophic. It will be my turn next.  Like dominoes in a row, we will all eventually topple.  That is how it is with the passage of time.

Yes, time passes—things change.  

That is how it is in life . . . and with death. 

~Rhonda