*** Nope, I am not going to burden my family that way again... I don’t fear it. When it is time it is time and I will be ready for it.***
One of my best friends (from grade school!) has a situation with her mom. She is 96, and afraid of dying. A very good woman from everything I’ve ever known about her. Seriously, one of the sweetest women I’ve ever met. How can she be so scared? I know I’m not there yet, but I hope to never be afraid. I know my Lord has claimed me as I have reached out my arms to Him. He has His Fingerprint on my soul. I pray for my friend and her mom, that she will willingly go when the Lord calls her.
We just lost my mom last year at 91. She was very anxious for several years but then read the book I’ve linked below. She was noticeably calmer for the last year or 2 of her life and not so focused on death even as it got closer.
Love,
O2
“One of my best friends (from grade school!) has a situation with her mom. She is 96, and afraid of dying. A very good woman from everything I’ve ever known about her. Seriously, one of the sweetest women I’ve ever met. How can she be so scared?”
Two things, we have a hard instinct to survive as humans, and we are brainwashed from birth to fear death.
“one of the sweetest women I’ve ever met. How can she be so scared?”
Many sweet people aren’t saved, so they don’t have the promise of eternal life in Heaven. Being good and sweet isn’t the answer.
About age 96, Mom started complaining, “I think God has forgotten me.” Her younger siblings had passed on over the years and she was the last man standing. She mentioned it a few more times before she died four months short of 100.
At least she wasn’t in bad pain — just had normal aches and pains like arthritis. And her mind was sharp until the last week when she was talking to her closest sister (”You can’t come down here; I have to go there”, and similar.) She had my brother’s wife re-arranging furniture so all of her visitors had places to sit. (She never had more than three or four actual visitors at a time.)
And maybe her mind still was sharp. Maybe she WAS talking to her sister. Maybe there WERE “visitors” that only she could see — “encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (angels?).