Help: Liland invites prayers

Subject: Liland invites prayers
From: Haruo
Date: 16 May 02 - 10:29 PM

I just posted the following notice on BaptistLife.com, and I repeat it here so that those of you who respond to prayer requests with prayer, meditation, healing thoughts, chants or songs, etc., can turn your attentions hither.

A couple of weeks ago I reported [on BaptistLife.com] the passing of longtime Fremont Baptist Church member and displaced Polish WWII refugee Olga Janowicz, and asked prayers for her survivors.

This past Monday or Tuesday, another member of our church, Betty Malone, died of side effects of cancer chemotherapy. Last night, Helen Smith, also of Fremont Baptist Church died following successful bypass (I think) surgery.

All three women had been very active and respected members of our church (and Olga and Helen, of our choir) for at least as long as I've been alive (which is 48 years if anyone's keeping track), so they were all getting up there in years, but as of a month ago they all appeared to be in reasonably good health and likely to be around for years to come. Of course, this is a serious blow to our church family as well as to their respective families; for a church of perhaps 100 the loss of three mainstays in three weeks is a shock; indeed, I suspect we all are in shock. Please pray for the surviving relatives (Betty was a widow, but has at least one son and two grandchildren that I know of; Helen is survived by her husband Gordon and who knows how many members of further generations), for the Fremont Baptist Church, for our pastor Jay Zaremba, and all others affected by these deaths.

On top of this, this afternoon (a couple hours before I heard about Helen's passing) I received the news that my Aunt Margie, my father's older sister, had died last week. We were not close, and now I regret not having made more of an effort to develop some relationship with her, at least an adult acquaintance. I don't think I've seen her since the early '80s.

Also, day before yesterday my employer announced that the bulk of the office I work in will be closed at the end of this month. This will probably not greatly affect me in terms of employment; I appear to be one of the 15 people (out of what had been about 60 at the beginning of May) that are being kept. Still, it makes for "stress in the workplace", loss of many longtime coworkers, etc. This was not unforeseen; indeed, last August the company had announced these plans and set "after Thanksgiving" as the target, so it's about 6 months overdue. So anyway, pray for me, and for my coworkers (including supervisors) who will be looking for work, etc.

And if I absent myself for a bit from the board, or snap unlilandishly at people, cut me a couple inches of extra slack...

Liland

PS: If you don't respond to such requests, I invite you not to. ;-)

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: CarolC
Date: 16 May 02 - 10:36 PM

So sorry to hear about all of that Liland. Sounds like you, your church family, and your co-workers are going through a really hellish time right now. My best thoughts and wishes go out to all of you.

Carol

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 May 02 - 10:40 PM

Liland, I shall request the presence of angels! If you feel a nudge at your shoulder...

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 16 May 02 - 10:53 PM

I will add you and yours to my prayers, Liland. God be with you in this time of sorrow.

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Escamillo
Date: 16 May 02 - 11:15 PM

You are in our thoughts and best wishes, Liland

Un abrazo (a hug) - Andrés

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Haruo
Date: 17 May 02 - 12:03 AM

¡Gracias a todos! Thanks to all!

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: wysiwyg
Date: 17 May 02 - 01:40 AM

Liland, you have my prayers of course. I will be away over the weekend, but post here if you would like this distributed to the prayer chain, and my backup will send it around if he is not also out of town. What we usually do (when it starts from a thread like this) is send the initial post and the URL to the thread, so people can come see your own words about it, get updates, and post messages of support. Just let us know, OK?

love,

~Susan

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: GUEST,SharonAatLibrary
Date: 17 May 02 - 02:14 AM

May they not face a death like this

Dying alone stinks... in more ways than the obvious one. Case in point: Bruce, my neighbor in the apartment building where I live (and where he doesn't, anymore). The coroner took his body away last night; the policeman said he'd been dead for about four days. I suspect it might have been more, but I can't be sure. The fact that nobody will ever really know his time of death for sure is another thing that stinks.

When I moved into the building almost two years ago, Bruce was already living there, downstairs and across the hall. The hallway is small - it connects only four units within a larger building - and it was often filled with foul odors from Bruce's apartment (cigarette smoke, burning food, overripe food, waste odors from his cats). So I didn't really notice anything different, at first, and can't pinpoint the moment when I started smelling something odd. I was only annoyed at what I thought was the smell of a litter box that wasn't being scooped. But then (when?), I began to suspect that someone's toilet had backed up, but I still couldn't pinpoint which apartment was emitting the sewer-y odor.

Otherwise, things seemed fairly normal in the hallway: Bruce's TV was on constantly, his air conditioner was running non-stop, and Bruce was never seen outside. Nothing unusual; I never got to know Bruce but I understood him to be on some sort of disability, since he never went to work. I guessed him to be in his 50s; he was very overweight, a heavy drinker and smoker, and alone in the apartment after his girlfriend and her adult son moved out last summer. At first, after the breakup, I'd see him outside with two cats he said she'd left with him for a while but would pick up later on. After a few months I didn't see the cats - or him - anymore. Once in a while his Jeep would be parked at a different angle in its space, the only indicator that he ever ventured out.

The night before last, the temperature went down into the mid-40s Fahrenheit, and I noticed that Bruce's air conditioner was still running. I thought he might just have been using it as an exhaust fan... except that I didn't smell the usual cigarette-smoke odor. I didn't smell anything else from his air-conditioning vent, either, but the stink in the hallway was getting noticeably worse. I started sniffing at doorjambs to try to track it down, to no avail.

By noon yesterday, when I came home from work for lunch, the stench was enough to take away my appetite. This time Bruce's doorjamb definitely smelled worse than the rest of the hallway. Still, I hesitated to knock on his door, not wanting to confront him if he was there and drunk and liable to become unreasonably angry. But when I took into consideration the lack of cigarette odor and the fact that the TV volume was lower than usual and hadn't changed for a couple of days, I figured that either he was away with someone and left his car, and left the TV and air on for indoor cats he might still have, or... So I left a telephone message for the landlord, saying I was concerned and asking him to check out the situation.

I went out for the evening (and to eat dinner somewhere nicer-smelling), and as I drove back I saw that lights had been turned on in windows of Bruce's apartment that had been dark before. Great, I thought, Bruce is back from wherever he went and now I'm going to be really embarrassed when the landlord tells him about the message I left. But then I turned into the parking lot and saw the police car, and the coroner's vehicle, and the gurney next to the opened hallway door, and Bruce's apartment door standing open just inside.

Of course the stench escaping from his apartment was twenty times worse than when the door was closed, and I could see lots of mouldering food and trash in the kitchen. How long it had been there before Bruce died is anyone's guess. I could hear my landlord talking with the policeman further inside, and wondered how they could stand to breathe in there. I went upstairs, out of the way of the cop and coroner, and came down again to speak to the landlord after Bruce's body was taken out and put into the coroner's SUV (yep, SUV!).

The landlord thanked me several times over for calling him. He said he'd entered the apartment and found Bruce in the bathroom, on the john. He'd died like Elvis. Probably a heart attack, according to the cop. The landlord was obviously shaken; he's a youngish guy and I suspect it might have been his first time dealing with a death in one of his buildings. He said he didn't know Bruce well but was still upset because he'd talked to Bruce a few times, and had listened to Bruce talk out his sorrow when he'd notified the landlord that his girlfriend wasn't on the lease anymore. The landlord said that the "ambulance guys" were laughing and cracking jokes over Bruce's body (there's that black humor again) while he asked in vain for some respect for the dead. I have to imagine that EMTs see so many bodies mangled horribly in accidents that a situation like last night's is akin to comic relief... but I didn't say that to the landlord just then!

I did say that this is the third time an apartment-neighbor of mine has died at home, down the hall from me, though this is the first time I played a part in the discovery of the body. My co-workers tell me that I should feel good for having made the call so that the body could be laid to rest at last, but I don't feel so good about taking so long to call. I don't feel good about the fact that it took a near-stranger to make that call, that there was no one in his life who was missing him. The landlord said he didn't even have a next-of-kin on his lease application; now the landlord has to go through Bruce's stuff to try to find someone to notify of the death.

And I don't feel good about not "meddling" in Bruce's life, about not seeing the danger signs that said he was headed for this kind of an end, about not at least calling the landlord to alert him to the situation before Bruce died.

Dying the way Bruce did is a sad, sorry way to leave the world, and too much like the sad, sorry way Bruce had lived in it. If anybody has read this far, I thank you for listening to me ramble on about this. I'd like to say just one more thing, to those who are enduring the pain of watching a loved one suffering through some terminal illness: cherish the chance you have to say farewell, to tell your loved one that he or she will be missed, to show your loved one that he or she will pass away in the continuing presence of your love, and so will never die alone.

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Haruo
Date: 17 May 02 - 03:12 AM

Thanks, Susan (and yes, Susan or sidekick, feel free to post it to the prayer chain) and Sharon, too (and yes, Sharon, I read the whole thing); I hear you.

Liland

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: SharonA
Date: 17 May 02 - 10:31 AM

Liland: I did post that story on a separate thread entitled BS: Dying alone stinks, but I didn't make the above post in this thread. Someone posted in my name at 2:14 AM today (hint: that's Eastern Daylight Time... and the library closes at 9 PM!). I'm glad you read it, Liland, and I appreciate that someone was moved by the story enough to copy-and-paste it, but I'll be grateful if in future the poster would not type my name in the "From" field to make it appear as if I'd made the post. A sentence within the message to the effect that "SharonA wrote this on another thread" would be fine. Alternatively, a link or URL of the other thread would be shorter! *G* Thanks in advance.

Now then, let me post my own message to Liland:

Liland, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss in the passing of your aunt, and of the loss to your spiritual community in the passing of three good friends. I'll be keeping you all in my thoughts. I can empathize with the stress you're feeling in your workplace, as I've gone through much the same thing where I work – watching my co-workers (and friends) get laid off, having to take on some of the duties they'd had, and dealing with the uncertain atmosphere as we all walk on eggs, wondering whether the company's executives can get the business back on its feet or whether we'll come to work to find the doors locked one day. ¡Mil abrazos a tí! (A thousand hugs to you!) (I think that's the correct translation, isn't it, Andrés?) Again, I'll be thinking of you and hoping you find peace and strength in spirit.

Take care, eat right and breathe deeply,
Sharon

Subject: urgent healing prayers needed
From: GUEST,Joanne
Date: 14 Oct 02 - 04:59 PM

My close friend Jeff Hammock - He was diagnosed with throat cancer 8 months ago; went through radiation and chemotherapy, and it spread to his lungs and stomach. He is on morphine and more chemotherapy. He was given 6mths to a year to live but now it's in his brain stem and he was told by his Dr. that he needs a miracle. He is on dialysis now; his kidneys went down. He is the kindest sweetest, loving man. I know God will heal him. He has a wife and three girls so please pray that God will remove this cancer from his body and make him well again. Thank you and god bless all of you. he went to Dr yesterday and the cancer on the brain is going down his spine now. He almost lost his fight this weekend but he woke up last night.He cant eat and is on iv and cath but needs to gain weight. I'm not giving up and he promised to keep fighting . God bless you

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Genie
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 11:55 AM

My prayers and empathy are with you. Liland. Peace and love.

Genie

Subject: RE: Help: Liland invites prayers
From: Burke
Date: 15 Oct 02 - 12:28 PM

Haruo/Liland, I see your request is kind of old. Any update?