Thursday, October 23, 2014

TAKE ME HOME TO DIE

"TAKE ME HOME TO DIE" "Take me home to die," daddy commanded me, matter-of-factly, and without emotion, as he limply lay in a nursing care facility in St. Louis County, Missouri, in September 1998. And so we did as we always did. Daddy's word was, as always, still law whatever his physical condition. Yet, that simple, specific command contained such security, clarity and resolve that I have never forgotten it. "Take me home to die." When I am summoned by God from earnest labor to eternal rest, I hope and pray that I, too, shall have the grace, the ability, the courage, and humility to utter such revealing words as my father did to me on that day.