Goodbye :/

Obituary for Jim Mead

..and now you walk beside angels

...and now you walk beside angels.

 Taken too soon from this earth but living forever in our hearts.. Thank you for every story you told, even when I had heard it many times before, thank you for being such a happy soul that everyone loved to be around, thank you for giving us this whole year of learning how a family pulls together in times of darkness, a whole year of learning to not take any moments of life for granted, thank you for loving me as a daughter and trusting me.. Last night when I left your bedside, I told you I will see you again..

Until then Jim, God needed you to come home.. Don't worry, we will meet you there..
I love you forever and always
-Katie

Almost Goodbye

This season I find it hard to celebrate The birth of Jesus when we are being forced to let go of someone that has been so precious to The world. God I know that you know what you are doing. I know that you knew our fate before we were even created, and I know that I may never rid myself of this bitter taste left by the unfortunate fate given to this man.

I have watched so many tears fall this past year, so many good people crumble before my eyes, all because of the pain we have all endured together watching helplessly as Jim battled cancer..and as much as we each wished we could take away his pain, we were only left standing with our hands tied and our heads hanging low.. This has been a cruel year, one with false hopes of recovery after a double surgery that was so painful that after that day to now he has not spent a day without pain, followed by a devastating aggressive return claiming that we had only one year left to be a part of what was left of jim's life, and then, as if one year wasn't leaving us all feeling robbed, the cancer had spread from your lungs into your brain, more rapidly then expected and within Weeks you were unable to stand or walk, we have been by you're bedside day and night watching one ability after another being stolen from you..

And helpless we remain as now you no longer wake up, no longer squeeze our hand, no longer speak, and we watch you struggling to breath.. It scares me to see how quickly someone can be taken away from us.. It scares me even more that cancer does not favor good or bad, black or white, male or female.. It is a cruel disease that takes who it wants at will...

I pray that when you pass you will find your place in gods kingdom. I pray that you walk beside Jesus and are finally free of all the pain this life has caused you.. I pray that you can finally rest and not worry about The family you created and are leaving behind.. Because once you cross through heavens gates, you will not worry for us here on earth for we will join you one day.. we will all walk again with you some day.

I love you, and for as long as you are here with us on earth, I will watch over you.. Because I know when you are finally in heaven, you will once again take your place in watching over all of us..

Broken Hour Glass

So we thought being given a year left with you was devestating enough, it has only been a couple months and already you are no longer the same person you were a year ago.. Last december is when we found out that you were sick. The day before we found out may have been the last day that we didn't worry day in and day out about you.. but today... Today, they took away the year we were given and the hour glass was cracked. In just the past few weeks, you have lost your ability to stand and walk. You have become a person and a personality I no longer recognize. You spend most of your time planning out your next cigarette or beer or pain medication.. and the other part of your time sleeping or staring off into nowhere. They had a party for you last weekend, they called it a celebration of your life, a reunion.. they called it evrything then what it really was, a goodbye party.
I have never been to such a thing, but I was there, behind the scenes, trying to do as much as I could helping strangers I have never met before feel comfortable and welcome, guess that is what I am good at. I bought you a journal and I spent a lot of my night chasing people down asking them to leave you a private written message for you to read. I made sure your children signed and wrote in it first.. and I was near last before I finally wrote the things that I wanted to say. I don't even know if you know I was the one who put together this journal, I have seen it sitting in 2 positions in your livingroom, so I am assuming you have been reading it. I wonder what everyone else said. I hope what I said wasnt too much, or not enough.
Back to my point, today we found out that the cancer has spread to your brain.. It has only been heresay to me, but  I am thinking I heard that you could live a few more weeks or a few more months, but you are still deciding whether or not you would like to have radiation therapy done to your brain tumors. I heard one dr tell you that it would help restore your ability to walk, and another dr tell you that once those abilities are lost, they are hard to get them back, I am not sure what to believe or trust in, but the truth is, radiation will not cure you, only help relieve the syptoms that the tumor and swelling of your brain is causing the rest of your body. I read that some of the symptoms of the cancer spreading to your brain can be personality changes, loss of judgement, loss of speech, and memory loss... who will you be then? It is just crazy to think that we will possibly not even know you anymore and vice versa. That this personality change could be good or bad, but either way, it will be the new you until the end.