It was to be just an enjoyable day of mother/daughter shopping. School was starting; the daughter was going to be a senior, the excitement of the final year of high school, the upcoming volleyball season.
After shopping for awhile at a well-known department store the mom went to try on an outfit in one of the dressing rooms.
When it seemed that her mother had been in the dressing room far too long, her daughter knocked on the dressing room door.
“Mom, are you OK?”
But no answer.
When she opened the door she was horrified to see her mother slumped on the floor. She thought at first that she had simply fainted. But at the hospital the truth became agonizingly real.
The mom, a young 41 years of age, had suffered a brain aneurysm and had died almost instantly.
The day had started out with such joy and hope and laughter and dreams.
But by the end of the day the 44 year old husband and father was making funeral arrangements for his wife and his only child’s mother.
That evening I told the story to my wife; when we had our bedtime prayers we prayed for that family. It was hard to hold back the tears for those two whose hearts had been so devastated.
My coworker informed me that he would be unavailable for a couple of hours on a recent Friday because he would be attending a funeral for his wife’s uncle. The uncle wasn’t real young but neither was he real old. The previous Friday the family and friends had gone out to eat at a well-liked restaurant and the uncle was one of the attendees at an evening filled with laughter and friendship. Late that night he got into his vehicle to leave but was struck with a massive heart-attack and died. When he was found the next day the engine of his vehicle was still running and the uncle still sat in the driver’s seat – one glove on and one glove off.
Both my wife and I were saddened (and shocked) to hear that a pastor friend of ours had passed away suddenly. He hadn’t been sick, but when his wife went to wake him the next morning she found that he had died quietly in his sleep.
The psalmist wrote so many centuries ago, “As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.” (Psalm 103:16-17)
Tomorrow may be too late to tell your spouse that you love them, to hug your kids, to call your parents, or to give your heart to Jesus.
Lord, help us to follow the advice of Moses, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
Dan Vander
Copyright 2014
