What Can You Say

I will get to an account of the day, but today is the one year anniversary of the death of Marsha Lynne Beard Boynton an amazing person. I have done sermons and eulogies for many people and I even said some things at the services we held for Marsha, but she defied description in so many ways. You see she was everything good to me. You see I write that and immediately it feels like what happens when anyone dies they become Saint So & So. I'm not overlooking Marsha's humanity any more than she overlooked mine. One part of the everything good was that she wouldn't settle for less than my best. She was intelligent, humorous, generous of spirit, generous of time, compassionate and passionate, honest to a fault, dedicated to children and young people, a real professional, charming and yet in many ways shy, the best partner a man could have, surprisingly elegant, loving in ways that aren't just a cliche, a true Christian woman who measured herself against high standards, I could go on but you get the idea. What can you say when God has given you forty five years to share with a treasure like that. I was blessed and I know it doesn't seem sufficient. So I'll just leave it at the trite but true. She was everything to me. I still love you honey.

I woke up last year on this date at my usual time. Marsha was on two medicines given by eyedropper as hospice medication so I prepared the two and went in and she didn’t wake up as she swallowed the two. Leaving her sleeping comfortably I dressed and went for my morning walk around the community. I was back at home about 7 AM and my daughter said that Marsha was struggling to breathe and seemed in pain. We had promised Marsha she would not be in pain but when I went in I didn’t think she was in pain. I suggested to Merrie that if she was concerned she could call the hospice nurse and she did, leaving a voice message. Before 7:30 AM the nurse called back and spoke with Merrie with the result that the pain medication could be doubled without any problem. I prepared the second dose and went to the bedroom to give them to Marsha and she was gone. I got into bed and just held her for some time and said prayers and said goodbye before I went out and told Merrie that she had passed away. People got up and the hospice nurse was called, Jim Burney, our friend, was called as he was picking up Marsha’s body for the funeral home and the rest of the day was a whirlwind of activity making phone calls and talking to people. We had to get Laura to Myrtle Beach and talk to the church about a service. It seemed like a dream in may ways. How could she be gone? How could I be a widower? I did know what Marsha wanted so the service was easy to plan, but the rest was just an aching movement through the things that need to happen. I say aching at the same time that I would say numb, because although I was emotionally hurting, it was not as bad as I would have thought. I was strangely at peace in the midst of it all. I was so glad that I had the family with me. We are scattered from top to bottom on the east coast and if they had all returned home leaving me alone at the time of Marsha’s passing I would have found it much more difficult. Perhaps that was Marsha;s last gift to me. Each of us deal with death a little differently and our relationships with Marsha were a little different so we each went into our mode of coping and we gave one another space to do that pretty well I thought. In the end it was a long emotional roller coaster of a day, but I was happy for Marsha. She did not suffer and I knew where she was going and I live with such pride for how she lived. At the end of the day I was amazed that I went right to sleep and slept well. I thought I would have difficulty but I did not.