Sometimes it takes awhile for a story to be written on paper but this one took only a matter of a few weeks. I recently experienced a death in the family, which lead me to question how much sight we as Christians, have lost regarding the duty we owe our families. And how much we are caught up in greed, materiality and the everyday struggles of life while ignoring those around us. Our families didn’t ask us to do all we are doing, or wearing what we are wearing or trying to accomplish all that we do, that’s the world’s way of saying you are successful, not God’s.

It’s been thirteen years since the last death in our family. God has been good to us. It was my grandmother’s funeral and it probably hit me the hardest of all. I loved my grandmother very much. I remember she use to sit in her three-room house and would look out the window all day long waiting for someone to come visit her. She had to call a cab if she wanted to go to the store or the doctor. Everyone was too busy to be bothered. Not that they didn’t care, just everyone was so busy and being pulled in different directions. She suffered from osteoporosis and was unable to move around very much. Every time I would come and see her, she would hand me a bag full of pennies she had saved for me. It was all she had. But I cherish those pennies more than I would have cherished any other gift.

But recently another death struck our family. My mom’s sister, my aunt died. The circumstances that surrounded her death have lead me to take a step back and analyze what is happening to the Christian family and to the world we live in. To our values and most of all our values on human life. My aunt lived a very independent life. At age 80 she stilled cooked, clean and drove herself around town. I always remember her as the spunky one in the family. She was full of life. But like all families when her children grew up they moved to other towns and she was left with just her sister and brothers in the area. The only son moved back home years later, but never regularly checked on his mom. The daughter brought my aunt her house and car she had till she died. She also came up periodically and took her mom back with her to her house to stay for a few days. But it was the week that she fell and the weeks later that took her life that had me seeing life differently.

My aunt’s son drove by his mom’s house everyday on the way to work. He never stopped except on Wednesday. The only reason he stopped on Wednesday’s was because she would cook his lunch. It was the only way she could get him to come see her was to offer to cook his lunch for him one day a week. At eighty I think the son should have stopped and take his mom out to lunch not the other way around. Doesn’t seem like much of a way to honor your mother and father when you are still trying to get them to do stuff for you. But that’s another topic. She fell somehow, someway on a Thursday. The doctor’s were never able to determine what caused the fall because by the time she had gotten to the hospital she had laid in the floor of her house for over a week before anyone found her. A WEEK. Not one person checked on this woman, called or anything for over a week. All I heard from the family (they have a large family) was I was here, I was there, I thought so and so did it. This led me to the follow thoughts; are we are so caught up in our lives and what we are supposed to be doing (worldly things) that we don’t even bother to check on our own? Are we are so busy running little Johnny to soccer practice because he won’t make it to college if we don’t and little Jane to dance class so she will be a great dancer some day, that we don’t take care of our own family. Your own family includes your mom and dad, grandmother and grandfather, spouse and children. Now I know what a lot of you are probably saying, "Well I work all day and my sister (brother) never goes and they can go up there just as good as I can. Well maybe that’s the case. Anyway maybe you and your siblings need to work out the details but when push comes to shove someone needs to take the bull by the horns and go with it. Lots of time I hear, "Well their going to get everything. Mom (Dad) left everything to them so they should go, why should I? Because it doesn’t matter who gets what. You can’t take it with you. There are some basic biblical principles we are forgetting here. "Honor your Mother and Father so that your days on this earth will be long"(Exodus 20:12). "Do not gather and heap up and store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust and worm consume and destroy, and where thieves break through and steal. But gather and heap up and store for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust nor worm consume and destroy, and where thieves do not break through and steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Matthew 6:19-22). Your mom and dad put a roof over your head, raised you, fed you and stuck by you when you were sick. They deserve a little bit more than a weekly or monthly phone call or visit. When our parents grow old their bodies and minds slow down. Friends are dying off and love ones move away. They still need love and attention. I also know that a lot of you are probably saying "well you don’t know what it was like at my house." No, I don’t. And you don’t know what it was like at mine. But I realized in order to do God’s work and to stay focused on God’s word I could not let bitterness, sadness, and anger destroy the good things God had in store for me. I had to learn to forgive and forget. I learn (by my three hour trek around the tennis courts one night, that’s another story) that I’m all grown up now. I need to be the strong one. Maybe I don’t know the whole story and maybe they weren’t able to get the help they needed or learn the things they needed to learn to make things better but I can change that. I can help. I can’t change the past but I can sure direct the course of the future. God gave us Love. He has a plan for our lives; don’t let the Devil destroy it by putting the world and the worldly material items in front. Do your duty, do what is right by others. Pray, Pray, Pray. You will get through it and learn to forgive and forget.

But what happen here is that between 15 people no one checked on her. Not even the neighbors around her, who notice she hadn’t been out of the house, or the mailman and newspaper guy, who noticed she didn’t get her mail or paper out of the mailbox. I used to live in a small town so everyone knows everyone else. But yet no one bothered to check on her. Finally the daughter-in-law went by to see her and found her lying on the floor. Over a week with no food and water. Unable to talk or swallow. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance and put on life support. The doctors told us that her organs had quit working and she wasn’t able to swallow. Lying in the floor like that she had damaged her esophagus and if they tried to feed her she would choke. She had sores on her back and legs from lying in the floor and in her own waste. She was in a great deal of pain. On Sunday the doctor’s came by and told the family they were going to cut the machines off, her body had shut down. Miraculously my aunt started to improve, but then the unthinkable happen. Someone in the family told the doctor’s she was not to receive any food or water. They were concerned about her swallowing, afraid she was going to choke. You have no idea how helpless you feel when you can’t save a life you love. That Friday I drove home and spent the night with my parents. I spent Saturday in the hospital with my aunt. I helped clean her wounds, turn her over, and comb her hair. The hospital was short staffed that day but I didn’t mind. The family had hired someone to sit with her all three shifts. They had prior commitments and she needed someone there with her. In my opinion, I would have had to cancel the prior commitments. Mom would have been more important, not a meeting. I wanted to spend some time with my aunt. I didn’t want her to leave this world without her knowing how much I loved her and all the things I remember as child we use to do. My family was able to function without me for the weekend and they understood. Everyone pulled their weight and did what they were supposed to do. My youngest son fixed dinner everyday, spaghetti it’s the only thing he knows how to cook, but my husband ate it away. I would sit up there and pray and sing to her and give her a sponge to suck on filled with apple juice. She was literally starving. The doctor came in on Saturday and said if we don’t get her a feeding tube in she would surely die. The only problem with the feeding tube is that they would have to strap her arms down. The family didn’t make their decision until Monday and decided not to go with the feeding tube. She died the next day.

Now, I know this was a hard decision to make. It would be a hard decision for anyone to make. But I don’t feel they gave her much of a fighting chance to survive. That’s just my opinion. Several individuals told me she asked to die, but I’m not sure. She never said anything to me. But that wasn’t anyone’s decision but God’s. She was a fighter and always had been. She had a hard and rough life but she lived it and she wasn’t afraid to stand up and fight for what is right. But on the other hand, you don’t know what quality of life she would have had if she survived. Or how she would have been looked after or how much care she would have required. I could just imagine the conversation going on about who would look after her. Everyone would have been too busy and putting her in a nursing home would have cost money. It’s strange, your mom and dad worked to buy you stuff, sit by you when you are sick, take you with them on vacations and made sure you went to school. You changed their lives when you came along, but yet no one seems willing to change their lifestyle or make the sacrifices to make sure mom and dad have peaceful last years. I know the next sentence out of people’s mouths will be "I have to work, I have a family." Well, one of the things I do is counsel people on the biblical aspects of money and I can assure you, a lot of people are caught up in the world. They have to have this, or own this, etc. Not too many people today are willing to go by what the book says on how and what they should do with their money.

But the most appalling act to the story comes at the funeral. We had all gathered at the site. My cousin (who is a Baptist minister in Winston Salem) gave the graveside message. Then we all gathered at my aunt’s house. We had probably been at the house ten minutes when the daughter-in-law asked the daughter if she could go back to the closet and get her clothes out and take them to the flea market the next day. After all my aunt (her mom) didn’t need them any more. We haven’t even buried the woman yet and already people are wanting stuff to sell or use for their own purpose. This was simply appalling. Not at least to say materialist, selfish, greedy and just down right mean. And this woman goes to church on Sunday! I believe that act just showed me, how we as Americans, are becoming. Human life means little to us. Material things mean more. Duty is something we know very little about. But we know a lot about our own self needs. Take a step back and look at yourself. How are you showing yourself to your children? Do you want them to treat you the same way you are treating others? Do you want love and respect, even in your old age? Is your child or children sitting around saying, "I want to be a doctor, lawyer, so I can be rich when I grow up so I can buy things." What are we teaching them?