Your Dying Spouse 660 - Life Matters

Was it all worth it?

Did my life matter?

Questions like that are natural, especially at times like this, I guess, after a scary-painful weekend...

I do not like to think of this,

but it seems I have no choice.

I wonder if the world will miss

my hope, my heart, my voice?

I have no concrete legacy,

my name won't sail the seas of time;

there's just a quiet history

where I endeavoured to be kind.

Our lives are ripples on a pond

whose shore we cannot see;

like the thief to cross was bound,

"Please God, remember me!"

As time and tide bear me hence,

did my life make any difference?

The answer, of course, is, yes, it mattered.

You don't have a purpose in life.

You are God's purpose.

Music from The Blues Image, with Ride Captain Ride.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 659 - Say WHAT? {FMF}

I don't hear so good these days. Guess I need glasses.

Seriously, severe pain does interfere with hearing, and sometimes with processing what I've heard. As the pain ramps up, voices get far away, and distorted, and eventually everyone souns like Donald Duck on a bad phone connexion.

As an example...in this famous clip from the film version of Oliver Twist, what did you really hear?

I’ve always thought that Oliver Twist

had a South Pacific aura;

I mean, how can a bloke resist,

“Please, sir, I want Samoa?”

Hearing loss has got me shook,

not quite sure of what I’ve heard;

but I was glad to find that drinking book

called “Tequila Mockingbird.”

If you’re a fan of Petula Clark,

that lovely singing English lady,

then perhaps your heart will hark

to the strains of Downton Abbey.

And if flatulence is an easing friend,

may I suggest – Gone With The Wind.

Music, of course, from Petual Clark, with Downtown.

If anyone wants an update...yeah, worse. You know that space above your collarbones, that's supposted to be indented? Mine's convex, which means I can no longer raise my hands above my head if ordered to surrender...

...which means, I guess, I'll have to just fight it out.

Yee ha.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 658 - Lab Results

Healing can come from the most unexpected places. Several years ago, Barb saw a black Lab looking very lost and anxious on her drive home. She stopped the car, and he jumped in as if she were his Lyft.

Life hasn't been the same since.

Do you want a life of danger,

exercise to melt the flab?

It comes with sunshine and no anger:

may I introduce the Lab?

He's big and strong, enthusiastic

to go where his senses lead,

direction change is rather drastic;

firm grip and footing's what you need.

When you walk him on a leash

be sure your thoughts do not meander;

if they do, he will thus teach

by dragging you through lawn and planter.

My Labby doth repay in kind

with his cheerful Lab-track mind.

Music from the Partridge Family (yes, really!) with Come On Get Happy, from the soundtrack of the highly recommended Ant-Man And The Wasp.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 657 - The Hope And The Healing

Barb was in Indiana over the weekend, to spend some time with her da, who's in hospice. They enjoyed each other's company, and enjoyed the blessing of good weather to spend some time outside (and Barb got to walk barefoot in the grass, which you don't do in New Mexico).

I did OK (friends checked on me daily), except for a broken and abcesed tooth (needing a DIY root canal)and a tumour that got noticably bigger. Barb, on seeing the latter after she returned, said, "Yuck!"

Things like tumours and abcessed teeth are unpleasant, sure, but if one believes in Christ's promise ("I am the Ressurection and the Life...") then they really don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.

Finally, I found a place to use that line from Casablanca!

They say it's OK to be sad,

and that it's fine to cry

when things are much worse than bad

beneath a fading sky.

But even through the grim ordeal

of tumours and of blood,

there is indeed a path to heal,

and hope cometh on the flood.

Though my body may be spent,

I look, with shining eyes

unto the hole that He hath rent

from grave, to see the skies.

My failing body, now a-dancing

before my laughing, risen King.

Music from Clemency, with Boys' Choir.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 656 - Remember Me Thus {FMF}

And yes, there is hard stuff I really don't want to deal with, the looking-in-the-mirror things.

No, I don't just mean the tumours and swellings and other stuff...I mean what's in the eyes. (Best not to take off the shades, sometimes.)

It's a fact (well, I woul guess so) that the only truly genuine person is Jesus; we're most all of us trying, sometimes very hard, to be someone else.

Sometimes, God help us, we succeed.

And in this winning, we truly lose.

As a husband I have truly failed;

the legacy is lost, and yet

I hope you know that here prevailed

the toughest bastard you ever met.

I wish that I could have understood

the tenderness, so vulnerable

and not have always played the hood,

out for glory, and for trouble.

All I can offer, in this place

is to rise with smile, against the pain,

and pray that God's most holy grace

will bring you joy in life again.

Remember me, and don't be sad,

for I was hard, and I was bad.

This one-secod clip says it all.

Music from Pat Benatar, with We Belong.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.