Dear brethren,

Some of you are wondering about us here on the sudden death of my dad.

Some of you, also, have tasted grief and sorrow amongst the Lord’s mercies even in the face of death yourself or that of a loved one…or even a parent. In the West, most of us are ill prepared for the end of mortal life, a necessary part of eternal life.

The mobile phone custom ringtone from the song “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” blared out the announcement that a special call was coming in later Tuesday afternoon that week. I suspected it was my wife, Sandy.

My hands were full of groceries taken from the cart at Costco. I think I had a bag of pecans in one hand and a gallon of OJ in the other at that very time. They were shuffled quickly into the empty cardboard boxes on the floor of my white and blue GMC conversion van. As usual, I was behind schedule.

The phone continued to play the ringtone as I hurried. Both the cart and I were wedged in the tiny space between my van and the SUV parked to my left. Being irritated that I hadn’t done a better job pulling between the lines, I commandeered the iphone out of the Otter Box and glanced at the screen with my Dad and Mom’s picture that was tied to their contact record.

The name on the call declared “Shirlee White,” and the time was 4:34. The call was originating from her mobile handset, which she disliked and hardly ever used.

Strange, I mused. My Mom normally doesn’t call during business hours as she is very sensitive to our work schedule of running our small digital marketing and consulting firm. And from the mobile phone, not the home phone. I’ll finish here and call her right back, was my next decision. The phone quit ringing. I tried to force my mind to go blank.

It didn’t work.

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