I was expecting my first child within the next month when Cliff came in to make arrangements for his wife. He was shocked to see me in such a state and asked when the baby was due. I told him the due date was May 18^th and he sadly told me that the doctors had prepared his family for about the same amount of time for his wife. Terry was too young to die but cancer seems not to care for youth or lack of longevity. It can be an unforgiving and cruel disease that despite our best efforts and intentions takes away those we love without regard for age or love of life.

I had known Terry only through my work at the funeral home but what I remembered of her was a pretty young at heart woman and mother who was gregarious and had kindly eyes and a warm smile. She seemed to be the type of person that you could trust with a secret and who would lend an understanding ear whether or not she knew you. It never seems fair that people are taken from us when they are so young and full of life and I have sat through enough funerals of this sort to know that it happens even when it is not fair. It seems that all we can do is to honor and recognize the miracle of that life no matter how short lived..

As Cliff went to leave he turned at the front door standing in the afternoon light in his blue jean overalls, baseball cap and sunglasses and he gave me a smile and said, "Now don't go havin' that baby until after we need you." I laughed and told him I would do the best that I could but I had little control over the event.

At the time it seemed a joking remark but I realized as the days went by and Terry had not died as soon as the doctors predicted and as my baby's due date came and went how true it really is that we do not have any control over the greatest events in our life- our birth and our death. I got in the habit of saying quite often when asked about my due date "I'm overdue but I beginning to believe that really only God knows when it will be". I reconciled that the baby was "just not ready to be born"- perhaps she needed some more time. And perhaps, Terry too, was facing her death in this same way- she was just not ready yet and truly only God knew when it would be time.

Terry's time did come. On the morning of May 26^th she was called home on the last of the greatest events of her life- her death. Her family came in later and were surprised to see me- still pregnant. Cliff laughed and said, "I thought you would have had that baby by now" I told him that I also thought I would have had the baby by now- but it just wasn't time yet. The doctor had set my inducement date for that Wednesday morning on the 29^th and as we sat and finalized arrangements we arranged for the funeral the same morning. The family had wanted to wait until this day because they said that whenever Terry had planned anything it had always rained and it was not supposed to rain that day. When we finished I immediately called the doctor's office and told them that we would have to put off the inducement until that afternoon because I wanted to be at the funeral that morning.

I sat through the funeral and found tears welling in my eyes. I realized that I felt a connection, not only to the family, but to Terry. I felt that we had been going through something together- some life process that is a part of what binds us to one another in the human experience. I realized that death and birth are so very similar. Both require us to move on from one comfortable world to another that we know nothing about but have no choice in going to. Both are transformations of the spirit into another life. At birth we are born into this human life and when we die- we are born into everlasting life. I listened to the story of Terry's life- a wonderful life filled with love and happiness and I wished this for my child- a life of happiness and love. I realized the infinity of the life experience and how we are all so connected to this neverending circle that is our existence.

As the funeral ended and people left to go the cemetery, Cliff came up and kissed me on the cheek and told me, "One life has ended and another is beginning."

My daughter, Hope, was born May 30^th in the afternoon during a torrential rainstorm. I thought about how Cliff had told me of Terry's luck with rain and how it had always seemed to rain on important days in her life. I looked at my little daughter, so new to the world, and lay there listening to the rain as it came down outside the hospital window. I smiled as I looked at Hope and thought of Terry knowing that she too was also starting a new life in a place where she would never have to worry about the rain again.

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rfh@robinsonfuneralhomeinc.com

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