Posts Tagged ‘death’

What have you inherited? Inheritance is far more than what can be listed in a "last will and testament." Some of what makes up our "inheritance" becomes crystal clear when we, as parents, look at our children and see ourselves, our parents, and/or our grandparents in our children's appearance, mannerisms, interests, and personalities. For instance, I've inherited my dad's bizarre sense of humor and have passed it on to my own children. I have also inherited from both of my parents a body with the annoying ability to extract every calorie and every fat gram from every ounce of food that passes through my lips! Some of what we pass on to our children is not fully realized until our children are well into adulthood. Read on....

This past week I was strongly reminded of several other physical traits that get passed on from generation to generation in our family. Our son Mark has given blood frequently over the past ten years. His blood is highly sought after by the blood-letters since he is a universal donor, O-negative. He is fortunate not to have inherited my tendency to vasovagal episodes when giving blood, unlike our daughter Nora who shares the same issues that dear old dad grapples with. However, this past Monday, for the first time, Mark had a reaction to the chlorhexidine gluconate that is now being used to clean the arm before the needle is inserted. His was the same reaction I described in my post medical faux pas, and his arm looks every bit as bad as mine did. The doctor put him on Prednisone for a week to try to throw off the ill effects of the reaction. Poor guy!

For most of my life I have known that type 2 diabetes does not run in my family – it gallops! My great-grandmother had diabetes, as did my grandfather and his nine siblings, as does my mother whose younger sister is officially prediabetic. My extended family is far-flung and has not kept in close contact, and therefore I do not know what is happening in many of their lives. However, last week I heard about the first person I know of in my generation of my great-grandma's family who has now been diagnosed with diabetes. I figure that it's just a matter of time until I become diabetic, but I've been doing everything I can to delay the onset for as long as possible.

These two bits of news got me to thinking about what we inherit. The following jokes poke fun at different aspects of inheritances and heritage.

Inheritance jokes...

A little boy came home from school one day and handed his father his grade card, with nothing but D's and F's on it. Before the father had time to react, the boy asked him, "So tell me, Dad, is it heredity or environment?"

A man died with $30,000 to his name. He wanted to be remembered after he was gone, and his last request was that his wife be sure to buy a nice memorial stone. After everything was done at the funeral home and cemetery, she told her closest friend that there was none of the $30,000 left.

The friend exclaimed, "How can that be?!"

The widow said, "Well, the funeral cost me $6,500. And of course I made a donation to the church. That was $500 in my husband's honor, and I spent another $500, you know, for the wake, the food, etc. The rest went for the memorial stone he insisted on."

The friend asked, "$22,500 for the memorial stone? My word, how big is it?!"

The widow replied, "Three carats."

A math teacher posed this problem, "A wealthy man dies and leaves ten million dollars. One fifth is to go to his wife, one fifth is to go to his son, one sixth to his butler, and the rest to charity. Now, what does each one get?"

The savvy student answered, "A lawyer!"

A woman asks her husband, "Do you love me only because my father died and left me a fortune?"

"Of course not," he says. "I'd love you no matter who left you the money."

Two friends meet in the street. One looked forlorn and almost on the verge of tears. The other man said, "Hey, how come you look like your whole world caved in?"

The sad fellow said, "Well, let me tell you. Three weeks ago, an uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars."

"Well, that's sad about your uncle, but all that money is not bad either."

"Hold on, I'm just getting started. Two weeks ago, a cousin I never knew died and left me eighty-five thousand, free and clear."

"Wow, I'd like that!"

"Last week my grandfather passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million from him."

"Then, how come you look so glum?!"

"This week ... nothing yet!"

A highly successful business man wrote in his last will and testament: To my high school teacher, who always told me I'd never amount to anything and whom I promised to mention in my will, "Hi, Mrs. Matthews!"

Besides various physical conditions and the "stuff" found in our last will and testament, there are other important bits of heritage we pass on to our children. What are you seeking to pass on to your children that cannot be quantified in a will? Some people concentrate more on inherited conditions over which they don't have control or on a large inheritance which we've seen lately can take wings and fly away. What values and ideals are you seeking to pass on to your children? It is undeniable that more is caught than is taught.

quotation...

"Do you ever daydream about what God could do with your life? ... We need Christian dreamers." - Rob Campbell

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Rob

"Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt." - Herbert Hoover

Apparently the national debt has been around for quite a while if Hoover was talking about it. He would probably be shocked to know what it has become and to what dizzying heights (or depths) our current leaders are trying to send it!

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Earlier this week I posted the obituary of my former German professor, colleague and friend, Edith Long. Today I am shocked to have to tell you about the death of her son Paul on the way home from his mom's funeral. I am saddened beyond words.

With all the news coverage of Hurricane Ike yesterday and today, what would have been a huge news story - the horrible train crash in the Los Angeles area - has been pushed to the background. Paul, Karen, and Devin Long flew back home yesterday (Friday) after several days with Paul's family here in Greenville. Paul told me after the graveside service that he was dreading having to connect through Dallas with all the news about the storm expected to go through there. As far as I know, they got through Dallas fine. However, our Lord had it in His plan that they would be aboard the Metrolink commuter train involved in yesterday's collision. Karen and Devin each suffered minor injuries, but Paul suffered severe head trauma that resulted in his death this afternoon. Paul's sister Gail sent me a link this afternoon to an article in the NY Times about the crash. Paul's son Devin was interviewed shortly after the accident yesterday and quoted in the article. I put the link further down in this blog post, but the article has changed in the last hour, maybe with the news of Paul's death. Here's what was in the original article:

"Witnesses described a scene of instant terror. Devin Long, 16, was sitting in the middle car with his parents when the trains collided. "There was a great big jerk," he said. "I heard what sounded like a bunch of cars colliding, like a multicar crash. Both my parents went flying. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor between the exit doors." Mr. Long was thrown from his seat, but remained conscious.

His father, Paul Long, 56, lay unconscious but breathing by the stairwell to the second level of the double-decker car. His mother, Karen Long, 55, was injured but alert, he said. “When I saw the condition Dad was in, I sort of freaked out,” he said. “Mom was trying to communicate with Dad. I turned around and saw all the seat cushions tossed about the car. There was blood everywhere. People had cuts on their heads and faces, legs; they had many injuries.”

You may read whatever form the article now has by clicking here.

Paul was three years behind me in college, but through his mom, he and I got to know each other while I was in college and he was still in high school. We shared a very similar sense of humor. Paul was a long-time reader of my e-mails and my blog, and he sent me quite a bit of humor and even some more reflective types of things. Whenever he and his family came to Greenville to visit, we would have lunch together.

Please pray for his wife Karen and son Devin, as well as Paul's three siblings and their families. They have not even had time to begin to process Edith's homegoing and are in total shock about Paul's sudden departure for heaven. We're all reeling from the shocking suddenness of this all, but we're comforted by the knowledge that our Lord has not lost control - this was all in His loving plan for us all.

Today, I'm going to post the last thing my friend Paul sent to me. At the beginning of his e-mail he said, "Unfortunately, I remember most of these!"

Things you don't hear anymore...

Be sure to refill the ice trays - we're going to have company after while.

Watch for the postman - I want to get this letter to Aunt Mary in the mail today.

Quit slamming the screen door when you are on your way out!

Put a dish towel over the cake so the flies won't get on it.

You boys stay close by - the car may not start and I will need you to help push it off.

There's a dollar in my purse. Get 5 gallons of gas when you go to town.

It's getting hot. Open the back door and see if we can get a breeze through here.

Don't forget to wind the clock before you go to bed.

Why can't you remember to roll up your pant legs? Getting them caught in the bicycle chain so many times is tearing them up.

You have torn the knees out of that pair of pants so many times there is nothing left to put a patch on.

Don't you go outside with your good school clothes on!

Be sure and pour the cream off the top of the milk when you open the new bottle.

If you pull that stunt again, I'm going to wear you out!

Get out from under the sewing machine; bumping it messes up the thread!

That dog is NOT coming in this house! I don't care how cold it is out there, dogs just don't come in the house.

Wash your feet before you go to bed. They are nasty from playing outside all day barefooted.

Take that empty bottle to the store with you so you won't have to pay a deposit on another one.

Quit jumping on the floor! I have a cake in the oven and you are going to make it fall if you don't quit!

Let me know when the Fuller Brush man comes by - I need to get a few things from him.

You can walk to the store; it won't hurt you to get some exercise.

Don't sit too close to the TV. It's hard on your eyes.

Go out to the well and draw a bucket of water so I can wash dishes.

It is time for your system to get cleaned out. I am going to give you a dose of castor oil tonight.

If you get a spanking in school and I find out about it, you'll get another one when you get home.

Quit crossing your eyes! They will get stuck that way!

quotation...

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot

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Rob

"So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:12

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Today's iv is something I ran across in my files as I began to look for material for upcoming Father's Day posts. This was so nice, I couldn't resist sharing it now.

A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed. The minister assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit.

"I guess you were expecting me," he said.

"No, who are you?" said the father.

"I'm the new minister at your church," he replied. "When I saw the empty chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up."

"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"

Puzzled, the minister shut the door. "I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head." "I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said to me, 'Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus. Here is what I suggest: Sit down in a chair. Place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised He would always be with us. Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.'"

"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."

The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him and returned to the church.

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her daddy had died that afternoon.

"Did he die in peace?" he asked.

"Yes, when I left the house about two o' clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead.

"But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"

The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that."

2 Corinthians 5:7 reminds us that "we walk by faith, not by sight."

quotation...

"Today you and I are walking billboards, declaring either that the gospel is powerful and true or that it is weak and false. ... Am I really part of what Jesus does in people's lives, or am I part of some kind of culture?" - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

Do you ever feel like you're diagonally parked in a parallel universe?

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Tuesday of this week is April Fools' Day here in the US and in many other countries. What I'm posting today seems as if it could be an April Fools' story, but I've checked in out on snopes.com and found that it's all too true!

Barbara Sue Manire passed away on her 64th birthday in 2005. Her tombstone pictured below is the way it looked for the first year after her burial in the Highland Cemetery in Okemah, Oklahoma.

In case you can't read it clearly, the epitaph reads, "Our mom ... Her humor lives on." Here's why....

Barbara Sue Manire, a women with a great sense of humor, always used to say that when she died she wanted a parking meter on her grave that says 'Expired.' Barbara Sue's daughter, Sherri Ann Weeks confirmed that such an unusual decorative feature on her mother's tombstone was indeed her mother's idea. Sherri said, "Mom always said she wanted a parking meter with 'time expired.' And she wanted to be on the front row of the cemetery so she could see what was going on. We gave her what she wanted. ... Our dad wanted his final inscription to be 'I told 'em I was sick,'" said Weeks, "but we were never sure if he was serious about it. With Mom, she talked about the parking meter all the time. We knew she wanted it."

The parking meter wasn't placed at the time Barbara Sue Manire was buried since they weren't sure if it was the right thing to do after all. Her family mulled the whole idea over for about a year before Sherri's brother, Terry Heiskill, bought the meter on eBay. A hole was drilled in the gravestone to accommodate the parking meter.

Below are two different angles on the meter itself.

You can see the tombstone online by clicking here

chickadee update...

The last several times I've peeked into the bird house, the mama has been on her eggs. So I don't know at this point how many eggs there are currently. More details as they become available....

quotation...

Give us a sense of humor.
Give us the grace to see a joke,
To get some humor out of life,
And pass it on to other folk.

- author unknown

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Rob

Fools rush in - and get all the best seats.

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As I was looking through my files, trying to decide what to post, I ran across something I thought most of my readers will not have seen how two people look at the one remaining parachute.

The Parachute Paradigm

You are one of two people on a malfunctioning airplane, and there's only one parachute. Here's how you would handle the situation if you were a member of one of the following professions or philosophical outlooks...

Pessimist - you refuse the parachute because you might die in the jump anyway.

Optimist - you refuse the parachute because people have survived crashes like this before.

Procrastinator - you play a game of Monopoly - the winner gets the parachute.

Bureaucrat - you order a feasibility study on parachute use in multi-engine aircraft under code red conditions.

Lawyer - you agree to handle a lawsuit against the airline for a fee of one parachute.

Doctor - you tell your fellow traveler that you need to run more tests, then take the parachute in order to make it to your next appointment.

Sales executive - you sell the parachute to your fellow traveler at top retail rates and get the names of their friends and relatives who might like one too.

Internal Revenue Service - you confiscate the parachute along with your fellow traveler's luggage, wallet, and gold fillings.

Engineer - you make another parachute out of aisle curtains and dental floss.

Scientist - you give your fellow traveler the parachute and ask him to send you a report on how well it worked.

Mathematician - you refuse to accept the parachute without proof that it will work in all cases.

Philosopher - you ask how one can know that the parachute actually exists.

English major - you explicate simile and metaphor in the parachute instructions.

Comparative Linguist - you read the parachute instructions in all four languages.

Computer Scientist - you design a machine capable of operating a parachute as well as a human being could.

Economist - you plot a demand curve by asking your fellow traveler, at regular intervals, how much he would pay for a parachute.

Psychoanalyst - you ask your fellow traveler what the shape of a parachute reminds him of.

Actor - you tie your fellow traveler down so they can watch you develop the character of a person stuck on a falling plane without a parachute, before trying to find a stunt man to jump out for you at the last possible moment.

Artist - you hang the parachute on the wall and sign it.

Republican - as you jump out with the parachute, you tell your fellow traveler to work hard and not expect handouts.

Democrat - you extract a dollar from your fellow traveler to buy scissors so you can cut the parachute into two equal pieces.

Libertarian - after reminding your fellow traveler of his constitutional right to have a parachute, you take it and jump out.

Ross Perot - you tell your fellow traveler not to worry, since it won't take you long to learn how to fix a plane.

Surgeon General - you issue a warning that skydiving can be hazardous to your health.

Association of Tobacco Growers - you explain very patiently that despite a number of remarkable coincidences, studies have shown no link whatsoever between airplane crashes and death.

Environmentalist - you refuse to use the parachute unless it is biodegradable.

Auto Mechanic - you immediately start to look at the plane engine since, as long as you are looking at it, it works fine.

The Modern Language Department plays went very well Saturday evening. I was particularly proud of my students in the French play. Their hard work was evident, and everyone seemed to enjoy our play. Below is a picture of the cast members and directors of the three plays. Most of those involved with the French play are in the top row.

Here's the cast of the French play. What a fun group!

quotation...

"The gospel is about what God has done. ... The gospel rescues those who know they can't make it." - Dr. Drew Conley

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Rob

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you!

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