The Long Goodbye

I want to recommend a  blog piece to you--in fact the whole blog. Susan Hull is the daughter of Dr. and Willodean Hull of  Birmingham. I have followed her journey as her Father was diagnosed with ALS and began  a slow terrible slide downhill. Not too long ago her Mother developed serious dementia. She has written movingly and brilliantly about the painful journey with her Father and Mother.

In her latest blog piece she tells how she received a frantic phone call from her father that she could not understand. Someone staying with them gave Susan the sad news: her Mother had only about a week to live. So she writes about this news and her feelings.

 Her words are worth pondering and as I read them I thought about Langston Hughes' poem:

"At the feet o' Jesus,

Sorrow like the sea.

Lordy, let yo' mercy

Come driftin' down on me.

At the feet o' Jesus

At yo' feet I stand.

O, ma little Jesus,

Please reach out yo' hand."

--The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, p. 78