Courage and Company

Ysabel de la Rosa

Many of this blog's posts are by writers who mourn someone they love. Those of us who grew up in/with families often forget that many die alone, that it is a great gift--sometimes even a luxury--to have someone who stays behind and mourns our absence. This mourning is a reassurance that we matter. Dying alone may make that reassurance hard, if not impossible to find. 

I am posting a link to a true story by author Kent Nerburn that someone shared with me last week. I hope you will take a moment to read it.

I have posted it because it hit very close to home. In fact, I know of someone to whom something very similar happened. She entered Hospice, elderly and alone. The difference is that in the case of the person I knew about, she entered alone because her family chose not to change previously arranged travel plans. She died with no family near. 

Maybe, if we are very attentive, we can find opportunities to be as good to others as Mr. Nerburn was to this lady on this occasion. Or, we can offer daily prayers for people who make the transition with no other human holding their hand. Here's the story and information about the book it comes from. The Cabride