Like Rolling off a Blog

This was the title of a chapter Mom (Joyce Nelson Sawyer) wrote in her booklet Take Care of My Child…for Awhile. It was forty years ago today that my little brother Ricky died of cancer at the age of 9. How could it be that long? This chapter is longer than most of the blog posts. Primarily for family members. …Then on July 11, at about four Sunday afternoon, Dale came into the living room and said Ricky’s eyes were rolling back and he was having convulsions. Dale was really shaken; it was terrible to watch and we knew death was close now. We planned to have Ricky die at home, but we realized we couldn’t handle this. He needed relief from pain and he couldn’t keep the pills down. He no longer had control of his bodily functions. He needed the help of a doctor and the hospital. Our doctor at McClellan [Air Force Base in northern Sacramento] had moved on Friday, so I called the doctors at Stanford Children’s. Dr. Wilbur was away at a convention and Dr. Long was on vacation. I f...

This particular entry from Mom (Joyce Nelson Sawyer) harkens back to when they were stationed at Hahn Air Force Base in Germany. That would have been the early 1980s. When we lived at Hahn AFB, Germany, I was a Red Cross volunteer, assigned to the hydro pool in the hospital. I manned the desk, emptied the tubs, cleaned them, and filled them again after each patient. One day an alarm went off and all the military personnel ran down the hall, put on protective clothing and gas masks. I asked my supervisor what I was supposed to do. He said I should get to the hospital emergency room and wait until the drill was over. I asked what the school children were doing. He said they all went to the basement of the school. I soon realized that I had nothing to worry about. If the alarm was for real, I would be dead in a short time. As you can see, I’m still here and we had one of those drills once a month. In fact, I got off easier than the military who had to put on heavy, hot gear and ga...

Over and over again I’ve felt the urge to call my mom. There are no phones in heaven, so I’m taking this as a prompt to pray for my dad, left behind and feeling more and more agitated as he loses control of his day-to-day activities. Reminds me of the Scripture in John 21:18 that says, “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Ouch! So, I decided to share some more of Mom’s musings today. First of all, I have to say that today’s addition was written in Mom’s handwriting on the back of an “Elfstrand blog” by Lara, talking about how Timmy had just hit a button on a developmental toy without assistance. Brought tears to my eyes. Hindsight, you know … In August of 1970, my husband came home from work and told the family we were not flying home to America [from Japan], but we were going on a cruise ship, ...