Beryl’s Legacy
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
Pericles
Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.
Ernest Hemingway
A few weeks ago, I wrote a brief blog about legacy that was inspired by the death of Dolly Parton, but this blog about legacy was written more than a year ago as I thought about a dear friend who passed away in September 21st a few years ago. Beryl bravely battled cancer before eventually going home to Jesus. It may seem trite to use that phrase “going home to Jesus”, but I have to share the story of her cancer journey so you will understand how it is fitting.
It was a fall evening in 2017, when I was in the midst of my church community group, when Beryl shared her concern over a stomach issue on a recent vacation along with a bump in her neck that was sending her to a doctor. Since my sweet friend tended to be a bit emotional and a bit of a worrywart, and we all wanted to believe the best, we encouraged her by saying that it was probably nothing. Well, it was something.
That discovery was the beginning of an emotional, roller coaster journey of several years. Along the way, God encouraged myself, and my church community group, to reach out and support Beryl in every way that we could as she dealt with ovarian cancer. Though she and I had many political and ideological differences, our faith in God united us in the face of the enemy of cancer; those same elements brought us much closer through multiple visits at home and in the hospital. We formed a sweet, close friendship that would forever change my life. No doubt, our friendship bond was deeper and stronger, as my husband also was diagnosed with lung cancer in that same period. We all walked many dark days together with only peeks of light.
It was a couple years after I lost my husband that I got the text from her husband that Beryl wanted to see me, and it would probably be the last time. I explained that I didn’t want to intrude on that precious family time, but I would come if she truly wanted me to. I have to be honest; I didn’t want to go. I still had fresh painful memories of losing my husband, but my friend wanted to see me, so I went to her house. She was clearly suffering and struggling, but she had made her peace with God calling her home. As she painfully attempted to find an image on her phone that she wanted to share, I recalled an image that she had sent me some weeks earlier. So I pulled it up on my phone and shared it with her. She was so relieved because she desperately wanted to share the image of a painting of Jesus and a young girl hugging, entitled “First Day in Heaven”. This is the image that she held close to her heart in the time of transition; it brought her comfort, but she knew that it would also bring comfort to me in my grief journey.
It was incredibly impactful to see her perspective of looking ahead to joy, even in the midst of heartbreaking sorrowful goodbyes. Sharing that moment with my sweet Beryl was a turning point in my own grief journey, as it reminded me of perspective and provided God’s comfort through one soon to see God. What a tremendous legacy to leave to a friend! What a significant check point for perspective. Sometimes we get so caught up in day to day life or our current worldly struggles that we tend to forget that this life is just the beginning chapter in the book of perfect eternal life.
