Speak friend and enter.

As many of you know and some don't, an aunt and an uncle of mine, Jackie and Billy Hudsputh recently passed away. He had contracted cancer a short while ago and after undergoing surgery to remove the tumor soon returned to the hospital with new spots in his brain. Jackie went into the hospital at the same time with pneumonia and because she had stopped eating. They died the same week. My uncle was a man of many talents, vocally, artistically and just making people welcome. Much was said about him at his funeral, in fact he sang at it. Much less was said about my aunt at her funeral. She had been practially home bound for some time, and I don't think the preacher knew her very well. Thats why I'm writing this. I really think she deserved more. I never knew her when she was young, but I know it wasn't easy. She contracted polio as a baby and was for some time forced to use a wheelchair. According to a story I heard at the funeral she used to tip it over to get her brother in trouble. I know she spent some time at Warm Springs, maybe it was there she got out of the wheelchair, I don't know. I do know that while she had to wear a brace later in life, she was never again stuck in a wheel chair, at least not that I can remember. The doctors said she wouldn't walk past age fifty, she was 46 when I was born, for twenty years she made liars of them. I thought she was angelic when I was little, I don't remember her ever being mean or losing her temper. I've been told that she did have one, but I don't think I ever saw it. She did have something, some call it stubbornness, or determination, or grit, I call it steel. Once she set her mind on something, thats how it was going to be. I think she decided she wasn't going to be confined to a chair, she wasn't, I think she decided that she wasn't going to let it get her down, I don't think I've ever known a kinder person, and, at the end of her life, she decided it was time to go home. When I was little one of my greatest fears was losing someone I loved, and I knew she was frail. I prayed so often "Not yet Lord, I don't think I could take it". It was a selfish prayer, but perhaps He listened anyway. Its still hard, it hurts, but I understand now what I wouldn't have then, they are both better off now, in a place where they can know, just as they are fully known. A place where cancer and polio can't reach. Much more could be said about them both, but its impossible to make a person you've known all your life real to someone else. But they were real to me, examples of strength and goodness, people I love and miss.