Standing in HOPE

I've never been here before.

Standing before the dying of a loved one.

In the beginning,

 his convulsive, hacking coughs, 

raised my heart beat.

I would find myself literally

 holding my own breath,

 as I watched him fight to find his.

But while watching him,

 I've found a beautiful place,

 called ACCEPTANCE.

And where Acceptance 

may appear to be a STANCE;

 it's not at all idle -

It's intentional stillness

 with peace 

as its fuel for STANDING,

and the one you STAND over,

 KNOWS it.

Acceptance has a 

grit and stamina 

all its own.

It sees beyond the inability to control,

with a calm heart.

It's a Tough tenderness, because eventually you

are called to do hard things, 

 to give difficult comforts as

the body starts to shut down.

So how does tough and tender meet?...

Somewhere in the faith of Acceptance

of things we can not change,

and have no control over.

Tough without Tender

is critical and callous

Tender without Tough

is careless and calamitous

Yet - when HOPE ties them together,

it teaches me when to just 

sit in his room quietly,

or simply stand watching, 

or do the necessary things that come

when the body is so pitifully limited...

always holding out LIFE,

even as death is about to call him home.

"So we fall asleep in Jesus.  We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death.  We are tired out, and we lay our head back on the bosom of Christ and quietly fall asleep."  ~Henry Ward Beecher