Grieving on our street

Our neighbor died tonight. To be honest, I don't even know his name, which is shameful. I've talked to him maybe four times in the year or two that they've lived here but I saw him every day. He was the father of our neighbor actually. He and his wife moved in with our neighbors (their daughter) about a year or so ago. He was mostly blind and deaf, but most days he would bring the dog in and out, go sit at the local pool hall and take his 1pm stroll down the street. About two weeks ago my female neighbor came over and asked me to pray for her dad b/c he had pneumonia and while being x-rayed the doc saw a spot on his lung, which they later determined to be Cancer. The docs said he was too old/weak to take the treatments required and so they brought him home to die. So there has been a lot of in and out going on at their house. Today while I was out weeding the garden I heard a strange noise and Zach stopped in his tracks staring. The neighbor was sitting on her back steps just sobbing with her hands in her lap. I thought for sure he had passed, but she eeked out that Hospice was there and that they said he only had hours left. I went to her yard and hugged her. She just fell into my arms and sobbed, her body just shaking with each cry. I had no words! I just said "Father, please be with this family. Please, God, I have no words for her." She let go and said she had to go inside to be with her sons and talk to them about this. I've paced the house all afternoon/early evening, Googling prayers I could pray specifically for those who are dying, saying them (they were Catholic prayers, but hey - God hears 'em all, right!?) and just grieving for this family. About 7:45 the doorbell rang and it was our neighbors. There they stood with his hat in the wife's hand. He had indeed passed away and in her grief, she still thought enough about us that she wanted to come tell us for one, but she also wanted to make sure that our children were not out front or looking outside when the hospital (or whomever it is that does this) comes to get her father's body. How caring is that? *sigh* My heart just breaks for the wife of this man. It was the comment of hers that really stirred me up the most. She had said to her children over breakfast, after learning that he wasn't going to get treatment, that she's "known that man since she was an eighteen year old girl." It made me realize how precious my relationship is with Scott and how long WE'VE been together. I can't imagine living without him now, after thirteen years of being together. I know it's inevitable and no one knows the time of their death, so it could be any day, young or old we're all going to die. It's just the thought of letting him go out of my life. He's essential to me. He's what I think of first in the morning and I get to see him off to sleep every night. Not to mention all the life stuff that we share in between! So my heart sinks at the thought of that woman sitting over there just feet away from me, knowing her lover from youth is no longer. Knowing that she's going on alone and starting a new chapter of her life titled Widowhood.

I've never had anyone significant in my life die, so it's hard for me to really grasp what grief really feels like inside. I've been sad over losses that happen around me, but I have no idea what my neighbor felt as she put her body weight in my arms and groaned in fear/loss/sadness? My heart really does ache for this family though. I hope I can show them some support in some way in the coming days.

I know my neighbors have awesome faith in Christ. Their religion and how they practice it is a little different than my own, but we've on occasion prayed together and I know that the parents and their kids believe whole heartedly in Christ and in Heaven. I'm quite sure that the grandparents were right there as well. So no matter what I know that the Spirit is there comforting them while they grieve the loss of the relationship and yet rejoice in the new life their father is being ushered into.

Lord, please be with this family tonight and in the coming days. I pray that their choices will be easy as they lay their beloved to rest. I ask for your Holy Spirit to dwell in their house and comfort them. I pray for rest, sleep and renewal. I pray for a coming together of their family. I pray that your warring angels will be close at hand to keep the enemy bound away from this family as they are weak. I pray specifically against Depression...that their grief will be sufficient but not worn as a cloak or millstone around their neck. I thank you, Sweet Jesus, for your death on the cross and that you conquered death so that we will have new life with you in Heaven! What an amazing gift if grace and mercy! I pray that your son will be welcomed in, his name checked in the Book of Life and that you will be able to say "Well done, my good and faithful son!" Father, I love you. In Your Son's holy name, Amen.