Syble DawsonAmy Foster's mom, Syble, went to be with the Lord a week ago Sunday. It had been an incredibly traumatic week for the family, as the previous Wednesday had seen a record number of tornadoes sweep across Northern Alabama, destroying nearby communities, uprooting giant trees and knocking power out in a huge radius around Fyffe.
Inside the Dawson home, Amy and her sister Karen were continuing to minister to their mama, who needed morphine every 30 minutes around the clock to keep the pain down. Amy, Karen and Gail stayed up all night, administering the necessary meds.
I was privileged to take part in her funeral...doing music along with Greg and DeeDee, and leading the closing prayer by the graveside. My experience at funerals is that it ALL comes out When you are the minister...whatever feelings are left unresolved, feuds between family members, resentments from long ago events -- you get to hear it all.
But this is what I heard about Syble -- she NEVER said a bad word about anyone. I want you to understand something -- NEVER. I heard it so often that I even began to ask the family members closest to her -- they all swore this was true. And so, when her time came after a life lived this way, nobody had a bad word to say about Syble, either.
You see, the reality is, there are any number of people who will say good things about me. But you will not have to take more than just a few steps to find people who have conflicting views about me (and be more than willing to share them with you). Perhaps living her life this way made it easier for Syble to die well, and to be lovingly cared for and served by those closest to her. One of her caretakers referred to her as 'an angel', and perhaps that is what she was.
How can you and I live our lives well so that we may end them well in addition? All I can tell you is what I learned from Syble.
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