LA
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Not every Christmas wish/prayer will always be received as hoped....Often I still think of that time and our wanting just five more days. There is an old hymn that they used to sing at my grandmother McCammon's country church in Paxton, Indiana.... "Farther Along." Farther along we'll understand why, I still wonder.
Just some thoughts:
Many have heard the song “Just One More Day;” a song made popular by the group Diamond Rio. I have spoken with Marty Roe of the group regarding that song, as he and his family attended church where my wife and I do.
Everytime I hear that song I am made to think of a happening that occurred many years ago in my family. In the late 1960s’ my older brother, his wife and three young children were all living in southern California when my brother was stricken with terminal cancer.
My parents and my family were all living in Indiana at the time. It was December and my parents had planned we would all fly to California the week of Christmas to be with my brother and his family. While not spoken, the thought for all of us was “one last time.” On a Sunday afternoon five days before we all were to fly to California, I was at my parent’s house and I took the call from a close friend of my brother’s family. “Larry, it’s not good; he has started hemorrhaging, and we have called to tell you there is not much time left.” I replied. “We will be on the first plane in the morning. We will be there.” “You don’t understand. It’s just a matter of a few hours.” About four hours later, the dreaded call came.
I was twenty-five years old at the time, and these forty-five years later I still have this thought: “Lord, it was almost Christmas, and all we were asking for was five more days.”
“To Say Goodbye”
He said, I’ll call you hon when I get there,
ten minutes later he was in the air,
She dropped the kids at school and headed home,
walked in and turned the TV on.
She could tell that there was something wrong,
every channel had the same thing on.
She wants to put her arms around his neck,
and look in his eyes so blue,
And say, honey, I don’t regret a single day I spent with you.
She wants to tell him that she loves him so,
and will until the day she dies.
It’s not that she can’t let him go; she just wants to say good-bye
He sits beside her in the nursing home;
through her silver hair he runs a comb,
He hangs their wedding picture on the wall,
she don’t remember who he is at all.
He tells her stories about the life they’ve lived,
from their first kiss to their last grandkids.
For seven months now she just sits and stares,
but if she wakes up he’s gonna be right there.
No, it ain’t that we can’t let them go, we just want to say goodbye.
I dare say, in the lives of all of us there have been times when “we just wanted to say good-bye.”
You?
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December 21, 2011
Keep on,
Larry Adamson