A Very Special Anniversary

A Very Special Anniversary
    Today was a very special anniversary. It’s a date that I don’t like to celebrate, but it’s an anniversary none-the-less. March 24, 2003, my beloved wife Cindy passed away. She had been ill with upper respiratory tract infection symptoms for about a week. Her wheezing was getting worse and I gave her no choice, it was time to be seen at the hospital. After much testing it was determined that she had fallen victim to the silent killer, ovarian cancer. It had quietly invaded her body to the point little could be done. Ten days later she was in the loving arms of Jesus. Cynthia “Cindy” Morrison Beck had passed through the veil from life into death and into heaven beyond earth’s shadows.
    The irony of the date is that is the second anniversary that I am forced to celebrate on the same date. It’s the anniversary of my mother Sybil Miner Beck’s passing. After many years where her mind and body held captive by the insidious grasp of Alzheimer’s disease, she died on the third anniversary of my wife’s passing. On March 24, 2006, she was freed from the shackles of the terrible disease that had been stealing her mind and ravaging her body for so many years. The symptoms of tha disease had gotten to the point she could no longer remember how to eat.
    There is sadness with this anniversary, but there’s also a blessing. In the brief window of Cindy’s illness, she had no pain. It was difficult for us who were left behind, but in retrospect, she didn’t have to suffer the agony and terrible pain that so many cancer victims have to bear.
    After so many years of my mother not knowing what was happening to her and the horror of having her memories swallowed up by the black hole of Alzheimer’s, she was finally free. In heaven she was again ablto be the person that we remember.
    Though neither of them are still here their memories remain alive in the hearts and minds of those who knew them.