My heart is with your family. I cant imagine your situation - I cant imagine having the path before me warped and changed, being forced to adapt and accept such terrible things.

I believe in God, in prayer, in love, and in miracles. I believe that all are on your side as you walk this most difficult path.

God bless you, your beatiful wife, and your entire family. Today and always.

Vickie

I’m glad you have such wonderful medical care.

Chapter One

Remember my determination
and with will to accomplish my drive.
To create a family with morals and values
and the self esteem to strive.
Remember the good times
as well as the bad.
I am no where near perfection
but I gave the best I had.
Remember my strengths
and laugh at my weaknesses.
I had a playful presence
and a mysterious uniqueness.
Remember me as a whole
not missing one single memory.
My life on earth was chapter one,
and my life after death is a whole new story.
MBG

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
“I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, or for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day.”
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or changed for thee, and love so wrought
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
-Eliz. Barrett Browning

Peace, brother AT. You are not alone.

Most Holy Apostle St. Jude, the Church honors and invokes you universally as the patron of hopeless casuse, of things almost despaired of. Pray for AT and BJ; they are so helpless and alone. Make use I implore you of that particular privilege given to you, to bring visible and speedt help where help is almost despaired of. Come to their assisiance in this great need, that they may receive of heaven in all their necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly that BJ will make a miraculous recovery from her illness and that AT will continue to be strong at this time. We promise. O Blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as our particularl and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you. Amen.

I will keep praying it. I am so, so sorry for what has happened, after the bright hopes of yesterday.

Please know that if there were, if our family could shoulder even a tiny fraction of loss and pain for you, we would. Please know we are thinking of you.

KP

I wish I had some profound words to make everything better and mean something but I’ve got nothing. As I was reading Leslie’s prayer to St Jude, I got chill bumps all up and down my body. I don’t know if that’s good or bad or just is. I’ll print it out and repeat it all day long for you guys.

Others believe that it’s better to have only healthy memories of loved ones, and that’s okay… I have friends who refuse to visit grandparents in hospice, etc., on precisely that logic, and they need to do what’s right for them.

Just an idea. I don’t get offended when people ignore me, and you qualify as “people,” so it’s all good. You’re doing everything right so far, and I know whatever you choose from here on out will be right, too.

We are but temporary spectres in human form, with a reality that is at best controlled by smoke and mirrors. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain; his prize can only give brief hope.

Love–your love with your sweet BJ and your precious claim to the future–is the real gift of this life.

I grieve now for a young woman I will never meet, and my sorrow runs deep for the loss felt by you.

There is a tomorrow, and a sweet heavenly blessing of eternal joy of reconnecting.

Live for that chance to be together again.

Know your heart, and those of your boys. Those are perfect keepsakes lovingly created through your relationship with BJ.

My heart is with you now. My prayers and thoughts embrace you.

Jean
Morristown, Tennessee

Thank you.
I’m so sorry. Whatever we can do to support you, we will do in a heartbeat.

Bless you and yours

Princess of the Air

Going somewhat sooner than
later, a place is made for
you, a home among those tall
flowers of reunion, among
the glad glances of those
nearly perfect buds who blend
for you their mild and
distant fragrance.

Follow the message sent
upon the wind in naked
spirit - even after they
are one with you and
one with whom you love -
those large, glad petals
of the air.

Give the statement you
are born to give, give it
gladly and be done with
saying.

All is done except to seize that
other life by letting go of this,
to leave one loving mother for
another -
they are sisters who differ
in degrees of light and
darkness, one full of
might, the other fair -
one full of stories, one a
wordless Princess of the air.

Robert Hunter
-1994

We are here until this is over no matter how it ends.

Know we are still praying and that we are here anytime.

http://deathcabforcutie.com/iwillfollow.html

Thank you

On Pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

Kahlil Gibran
from “The Prophet”

BJ - I could be you. You’ll always remind me to hold my little family a a little closer.

I always loved this by Dylan Thomas: “Though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion.” It’s so very true.