Reflections: 6 years

My mother's life ended six years ago today.

Evelyn with Anne - passport photo, March 1950

She lived from March 12, 1919, to April 9, 2008.
  
She did it all: 
childhood in Telluride and Mancos, 
college in Boulder and Denver, 
serving as a Navy nurse for WWII in Calif., 
love and marriage,
living in Tokyo during the Korean War, 
B.S. and M.S., 
raising four kids in Boulder & Bakersfield, 
teaching nursing at the Univ. of Maryland, 
retirement in Boulder, 
grandkids, 
widowhood,
writing her memoir, 
moving through the various levels of senior care: 

• independent
• assisted 
• memory care
• skilled nursing 
• hospice.

May we all be so fortunate.

I trust in you, O YHWH.
I say, You are my God.
My times are in your hand. 
            ~ Psalm 31: 14, 15.

YHWH, You have been our dwelling place
from one generation to another.

Before the mountains were brought forth,
or the land and the earth were born,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn us back to dust and say,
"Go back, O child of earth."

For a thousand years in your sight
are like yesterday when it is past,
or like a watch in the night.

You sweep us away like a dream;
we fade away suddenly like the grass.

In the morning it is green and flourishes;
in the evening it dries and withers.

For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.

You have set our wrong-doing before you,
our secret sins before the light of your face.

All our days pass away under your wrath;
we bring our years to an end like a sigh.

The span of our life is seventy years,
or perhaps in strength even eighty;
even then their sum is but labor and sorrow,
for they pass away quickly and we are gone.

Who considers the power of your anger?
Who rightly fears your indignation?

So teach us to number our days
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
     ~ Psalm 90: 1-12