When my wife Doris won Round Seven in her Championship Prizefight with two deadly forms of cancer, she, with renewed vigor, continued her profession as one of the premier landscape designers in Central Louisiana. It was a time for living and the family celebrated with thankful hearts.

However, Round Eight did a complete about face. Happiness turned to sorrow as tests showed that her lymphoma was coming out of remission and she was once again a hospital patient. As her immune system lost its ability to ward off any of the dangerous germs that seem to float around in any hospital setting and, in Doris's case, the virulent germs of salmonella and meningitis found their way into her system. From that time on a raging battle began between these savage infections and the powerful antibiotics administered on a daily basis.

And then, for reasons not explained to the family, Doris was moved to the Skilled Nursing section of the hospital. It was a disastrous decision from the very start. The Skilled Nursing Unit was not equipped nor trained to treat the serious problems affecting Doris.

Finally, new attention was given, but not before witnessing some of the most heart rendering experiences of her three month hospital stay.

Our 110 lb. Champion Of Her Class was reduced to a 75 lb.frail and weakened mortal being. It was as if a powerful conspiracy silently entered her life to leave her wounded and helpless. The list of invading germs was growing longer and longer.

Friends from Baton Rouge had arrived for a visit, but there was no response to their loving words of care and concern. Sensations and feelings were absent and Doris was sinking deeper into an unconscious state. Her time for living seemed to be making a transition into her time for dying. This was confirmed when the doctor said these dreaded words to the family, "We have done all that can be done for her. All we can do now is to try to keep her comfortable." Round Eight had come and gone and Doris had lost Round Eight.

The move from the Skilled Nursing Unit was not an easy one. She had come down from the fifth floor in a wheelchair. Now, because of her near-death condition, she was moved in her hospital bed to a new facility in the hospital.

As Round Nine opens, we are encouraged by the excellent care the medical staff gives to Doris as they attend to her many needs. Being aware that she is in the process of dying, they also take time to attend to the needs of the family who take turns sitting by her side every hour of the day and night.

It is now about to end and my mind tells me that I need to ask the doctor how much time does she have left? She had lost Round Eight. Was she now about to lose Round Nine? As the doctor began to give me an answer, I wanted to close my ears and pretend it was all a dream. But just as Doris had to face the reality of an incurable disease, it was now my time to face the same reality. "Seven days," the doctor said, "is the most she can live and her death may come sooner than that."

The Biblical sounding phrase "A time for living and a time for dying" now took on new meaning. Doris had experienced the adventure of living for over seventy-five years and she had lived it to the fullest. And now the time had come for her dying which left us with this question: Would it be, as we desired, a peaceful ending?

In imagination, I can see Doris being pulled away from us, slowly at first, and then she is gone - much like a person on an ocean beach who starts wading further and further out into the sea. And then, the riptide drags her under the ocean wave and she is gone! She is gone and we have lost her forever! But there is an important limitation to my imagination. My eyes are dim and I cannot see beneath the crashing waves of the churning ocean. Down there where my faith has not yet taken me is a sturdy life line. Doris still has a firm connection with her soul. I cannot see it and the doctor cannot see it, but the connection is there and it is real. And it pulls her back up on the shore where she stands in a kind of radiant beauty that only God can bestow.

Back in the real world I checked my notebook to be certain I had the dates correct. It was on a Thursday morning that the doctor told us that Doris had seven or less days to live. That was information that prompted quick action from the members of the family who were present.

Other family members needed to be informed. An endless list of important decisions needed to be discussed. And then, there is Doris and her need to know - should she be told of her impending death? It was, after all, her life. Should we deny to her the right to know that it was now her time for dying?

That night, after everyone had left, I sat by her bedside nearest to the wall with my notebook in my lap. The room was dark and the hallways were quiet. It was just the two of us, Doris and me - or so I thought. Without a sound being made, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I looked up I saw a lady I had not seen before. She did not appear to be on the nursing staff. As a tear fell from my eye, a glimmer of a smile appeared on her face and she simply said, "I understand." And then she was gone and I never saw her again.

The mystery of who she was will forever remain in my mind. I accepted it as a message from above saying, "You are not alone. I understand and I will be with you." That was reassurance that enabled me to enter the closed door of her room without knowing what I would find when I entered. But that was not enough to prepare me for what I found two days later on a Saturday morning. There was nothing that could have prepared me for that moment.

(Continued in next issue of the Senior News.)