Mortal Woman
by Elouise
I’m in the shady if not elderly bracket of life. You know. That time of life when people start treating you differently. Sometimes they don’t know whether to do obeisance because you’ve lived so long, or whether to treat you as a normal human being and let you get on with your mortal life.
Psalm 90:10 (King James Version) says it so well:
The days of our years are three-score years and ten;
And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
Yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
I’m in the shady area—somewhere between three-score years and ten (70), and fourscore years (80). Definitely moving toward the upper end of mortal life.
So just now I’m dealing with medical personnel. They have my best medical interests at heart, with some attention to my ‘quality of life’ as we call it. I suppose if I were in my 90s, they might also be attending to the quality of my death.
I know that can happen. It happened for my mother who was in a hospice facility when she died at age 78. It also happened years later for my father in the same hospice facility when he died at age 96.
Here’s the rub. The hospice facility is not obligated to our Western medical attempts to keep us alive. Hospice personnel assume mortality as the starting point for their services and facilities. They help people of any age and their loved ones accept imminent death, while doing what they can to make each person’s death as comfortable and dignified as possible.
So here I am, being asked to make decisions that will possibly avoid sudden death and give me an opportunity to ‘do whatever I’ve always done.’ I’ll be able to ‘get back to my life’ and not worry about sudden death or disability.
I appreciate the commitment to making my life as full and free as possible. For me, however, that includes numbering my days. Not that I know when I’ll die. I don’t.
Nonetheless, I’m to live each day as if it could be today. Not in a dour, long-faced, suffering-for-the-Lord sort of way, but with freedom. Without denial that each day I live brings me closer to my death.
The kicker, of course, is that I don’t know when or how that will happen. Hence the urgency to ‘number my days.’ I can’t afford to live in denial of death as the ever-imminent possibility. I am, after all, Mortal Woman.
Will I ever be ready to die? Not if you’re asking about my emotions, or how many tasks I’ll complete before I die, or even whether I’ll make amends with every person I’ve knowingly treated wrongly.
Yet the longer I live, the more I feel ready to die. Why? Because I’m more at peace than ever before with who I am and with the people God has brought into my life. Which is the other side of being more at peace with God than ever before.
I used to think that being ready to die meant getting all my belongings in order. Doing a post-death cleanup before I die, instead of leaving it for others to wade through.
This will never happen. I have 24 hours in a day. Getting ready to die is the work of a lifetime—not defined solely by throwing things out or giving them away. That’s part of the picture, but only part of it.
The largest part is about living as fully as I can in my writing, my friendships, my family relationships and this beautiful, pain-ridden world in which we all live and will die sooner or later.
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 February 2016
Photo credit: DAFraser, evening sky from our house, November 2013
Lovely! 🙂 xx
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Thank you, my mortal friend! 🙂
Elouise
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I don’t know Elouise, but I feel so calm and proud of you for such a beautiful life post. Your faith shines and I hope can only hope to handle such things with as much grace. You are on a roll my friend, beautiful. Peace and love and lots of wisdom I’ve now kept a piece of, K💜💜
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I’m so happy there’s a part of something about me now kept by you! I know you’ll take wonderful care of it. Thank you, Kim, for your unfailing encouragement.
Elouise
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We are all a part of this world together, it is even better with friends to give support and guide or just a gentle nudge to say, it’s all going to be okay😊 I’m glad to have you too, K
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Yes.
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YUp live life to the fullest until you are ready to leave this earth. Live it marching to your own beat
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Wonderful words of wisdom! Thanks, FL!
Elouise
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I turned 86 last month, so I also am in the shady part of life. A couple of years ago I wrote some thoughts of my own about that. here they are.
—–
How shall I title this?
End of Life Musings
or Don’t grieve for Me
I’m 84 years old.
I could die tomorrow-
or next month-
or next year.
My doctor says I’m good for another 10 or 15 years.
God will choose the day, the hour, the time.
My body is gradually getting weaker,
and age is taking its toll.
My mind is not as sharp as it once was —
I’m definitely over the hill.
But I’ve had a good life.
A wonderful life.
A good wife whom I love dearly,
and who loves and cares for me.
Children of whom I am proud,
three sons and a daughter
who love me and respect me.
Eleven grandchildren that I love.
And so many nephews and nieces,
some I hardly know, others are very dear.
And oh, so many friends that I cherish.
I’ve had some heartaches too —
a son who chose not to go on with life.
A few accidents, many mistakes…
Things I wish I had done differently.
But all that is behind me now
and I can dwell on the good things of life
that God has given me.
When it is time to go
I’ll be ready.
God will choose the day, the hour, the time.
If I can have my wish,
I’ll go quietly,
without much pain
or lingering.
But I may not get my wish —
that is not for me to decide.
But when I’m gone,
I want my family and friends to know
that I have loved them and respected them
and they need not grieve for me
because God has been good to me.
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Waldo, This brings tears to my eyes. It’s ‘you’ from the very first word to the last. Just beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Elouise
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Brilliant 🙂
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Thank you, Morgan! 🙂
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I’m 72 and I’m not ready to go yet. I’ve only just started my writing blog and I’ve got too many stories left to write. I really just don’t have time to die yet. I know I have to get my house in order but Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. However there is a bit of a contradiction in another part of the Gospels when He says, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?”
So I suppose I should sit down and work out a few things first and then, but only then, get on with living without worrying about the future.
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Well now. I’m with you, John! Not ready to go just yet–even though I have no say in it. However, I’ve decided that counting the cost (of doing or not doing something) means weighing what’s really important (blogging, family and health, for example) against what will have no lasting benefit except to be thrown in the fire and burned or given to charity or whatever.
It seems to me, though I may be wrong, that you’ve counted the cost and chosen what is most important to you right now. That might be, for example, giving your stories away–the true, the ugly and the just plain made-up stories that are like mini-snapshots of life. It’s the treasure you tap into–your mind, heart, memories, imagination, keen sense of observation and wickedly good sense of humor! Perhaps your blogging is a way of giving away bits of your life to those of us who come to visit you?
I will say, however, that if you don’t yet have a will and a power of attorney and something written down about what you want or don’t want done at the end of your life, that would be important. I will now go away and leave you in peace.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Elouise
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Thank you Elouise. Good night.
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You’re welcome, John.
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I love this. This is what I was facing when I was diagnosed with cancer. How long do I have? Will I ever be ready? Then I decided in order to live I must not think of my mortality. Just live each day like it counts because it does.
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Thanks for this wonderful comment, April. Yes, each day counts.
Elouise
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