Rog, Batman and Fronk, three Amigos

These last few weeks have been tough ones for some of the countries of this world.  The life changing problems in Japan are sad and scary for a country of people who have seen and experienced massive destruction before.  The problems in Libya are also of concern to the world.  For me it has been a couple of weeks of deep thought and prayer.  In that short time I have learned of three men whose work on this earth is done.

One amigo is a man I went to school with in Harvey, Illinois in the early 60's named Roger Johnson.  While I know him from our high school days, we were not close friends....I just knew him then and know him now because he helped organize our reunions.  His daughter started a blog for him after he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer last June and keeps everyone updated on his condition.  It sounds like his fight will be done soon as she has asked for many thoughts and prayers for his struggle in these last days of his life.

Another amigo was my cousin Joy's husband, Jim Davis (his boys called him Batman).  He passed away March 17, 2011 after a very short battle with stage 4 lung cancer.  I found Joy on face book three weeks ago after losing track of her more than 30 years ago.   I am trying to get as much information about our very large family for the ancestry book I am working on and found her via face book, just as I did with cousin Roger.   I was saddened to hear of Jim's illness and very surprised at how little time they had to deal with the impending loss of Joy's love and father of their two sons and ensuing families.  They, too, had asked for and relied heavily on positive thougths and prayer through a blog set up by one of their daughters-in law. 

The last amigo is a man named Lee Johnson (no relation to the Roger Johnson above) who passed away on March 22, 2011.  He was the husband of a colleague of mine, Mary Lou, who was my boss as the director of Special Needs in the school district  for which I worked before retiring.  Mary Lou was a straightforward boss, but also empathetic to the needs of all children.  She and I retired around the same time.  While I did not personally know her husband Lee, I did learn about him through a blog the family started after he was diagnosed with 2 brain tumors.  It is titled "Fronk's Health" (Fronk is a nickname from college days) and mostly written by one of his daughters, but Lee did on occasion post some of his own thoughts.  He went through all the treatments for cancer, but the severity of it was evident to him as he wrote piece after piece detailing his feelings and thoughts.  It is the deeply moving last entry in Fronk's journal of life that was posted by his daughter after his death that touched me the most.  She found it among his written musings and surmised he had written it in December to be posted at a later time.  I am inserting that last blog entry here in its entirety as it was written by Fronk.  While I did not receive permission to do so, somehow I don't think he or Mary Lou would mind.  It is as follows:

                                     CREATING A PRIVATE ETERNITY

I am an atheist. That means I do not adhere to any religious teaching that has one or more God(s) to whom or which one gives adoration. I came to my Atheism fairly late in life, after reading a good deal on the paleontology of man's antecedents. (I've been a doubter for a long time, but stuff you learn as a child sticks stubbornly in your psyche.)

Don't know exactly when I switched over. I think it was during the Kansas School Board silliness. When the creationists were trying to defend their position, I realized the position was indefensible, because it is indefensible. With bows to Cliff's mother, a pot is a pot.

Once you cross that particular Rubicon, it sets off a cascade of other stuff. What about Heaven and Hell and all that after-life stuff? Knowing my death is not far off gives more immediacy to either going back or inventing substitutes.

Hell? No problem -- I've been there -- at the bottom of anxiety depression. It is a living condition. Heaven, the same; at the other end -- leaving depression. I've been to both places. Heaven and Hell are for the living, not the dead.

I have come to believe that dying is a simple (yet not so simple) cessation of electrons across brain cell synapses. CLICK .

But here is the belief I am inventing: I believe we can create, at the moment of that click, our own Eternity. Wherever the last electron is headed -- the last thought, the last memory, the last fervent wish, becomes our Eternity. I think it has always been thus. For some, Heaven, for some, Hell, for some relief, for some, the fabled bright light, toward which one is invited (the default setting apparently) for some, gathered in the arms of Jesus (though I would urge those to consider some form of crowd control).

If I choose to believe this idea it follows that we can prepare our personal Eternities by visualizing them; putting smells and color and texture to them -- allowing emotions to sigh through the images. Fixing those vignettes in our minds and hearts so that they are our last thought.

Mary Lou turned to me with tears and asked if I would be waiting for her. "For all your Eternity, Love. For all eternity."

"All you have to do is want me there, and there Will I Be."

She is not so sure as I about this new way of looking at it. I am working on that. This is a very comforting line to peddle. Think about it -- design your own Eternity. I might be able to sell it to Presbyterians.

I have begun to design mine so that I have time for it to settle in. I am in a Wyoming grass hay field as the sun is coming up; light is gold and green, drops of dew cascading down each grass stem like tiny beads of pearls; the entire field is lit by cascading diamonds. Smell of fresh mown grass in early morning light. In the field I see three monoliths standing in chest high grass, iindistinct at first with the sun glare behind them.

As the glare fades I see they are three groups of people standing close. Light comes up a bit; promises to be hot later, but the morning coolness lies gently on the nodding heads of the grass. There is little that is more beautiful to me than the gentle cyma curve of a heavy seed head borne on a strong grass blade. The beauty is all around and I am overwhelmed .

The three monoliths resolve into three groups of people chest deep in the grass -- my daughters and their families. I am SO proud of them there in the morning's golden light. We are not grieving, but rather celebrating silently our lives -- the old ones and the new.

Mary Lou at my side, nearly hidden by the tall grass, squeezes my hand.

CLICK.

Where Lee "Fronk" did not believe in a God(s), is where our differences lie.  I do believe in a higher power in the form of a God.  I believe we all come from God and the goodness inside of us is through Him.   Lee's vision of his own eternity is so beautiful and full of warmth and love it took my breath away.  I believe he created it in his minds eye not through the absence of a belief in a God, but through his love and devotion to those he loved.  In my minds eye, those thoughts were there because he had the love of God in his soul and projected that love throughout his life to those around him.  I am so thankful to Fronk for sharing his wonderful writings. 

Rest comfortably, amigos,  in whatever eternity you've designed.  You were good men and you will be missed, but seen again by your loved ones in that place in our hearts and minds I call Heaven.