If I Could Just Have One Moment

If I could just have one moment of your time. One moment where you just say a simple "feel well" in your head for a stranger, for anyone, young and old, suffering and in pain. Just one moment.

I heard today that my dear Aunt Ruth is very sick. An amazing woman.



I have been blessed with one of the best aunts in the world, my Aunt Libby. She has been a part of my life since I can remember. She lived with us until I was 5 and we even shared a room, happy for me, a pain for Aunt Libby as I was always getting in her stuff. Aunt Libby is my mom's sister and though I never thought they looked alike, I see so much of my mom in Aunt Libby's beautiful face. She has been a sister, an aunt, a friend and a little bit of my mom, how lucky I was born into my family.

My Aunt Ruth is not related by blood or marriage. Aunt Ruth was an extra added attraction to my life and my family's life. She was our next door neighbor for the short time we lived in Deer Park, Long Island, about 4 years. It was just after I was born that we moved there and my younger sister Linda was born a couple of years later and Aunt Ruth is her godmother.

There was a bond created with my family and the family next door since the day we became neighbors and it lasts to this day. I wrote about the Young Family in my blog called Goodnight John Boy, as this family is as warm and welcoming and pure as the Walton family from the television show. To know them is to love them, just wonderful people.

Aunt Ruth is again an amazing woman. She went back to school for her nursing degree after raising a family of seven children. Worked so hard and lovingly for years as a nurse. Even after retiring, she volunteered and spread her love and care wherever she could. Aunt Ruth is one of those people who was just meant to be a nurse, a caregiver. She is a mom, a grandmother and a great grandmother. She is an aunt, a cousin, a friend, one of God's true gifts and I am so blessed to be part of her life.

I write today to ask you to say a prayer for her comfort. Though she is in the hospital right now, she just wants to come home and is choosing palliative care which just focuses on relieving pain and any suffering for different stages of sickness. If there is any place she could be to have that kind of care it is in her home, with her loving family. But an extra prayer or more can't hurt.

I'm hoping and praying that Aunt Ruth's good health is returned and she is back cradling her great grandchildren, being cuddled by her children and her grandchildren.

But mostly I hope and pray for her comfort. I've taken more than a moment for my Aunt Ruth but did take a little time to send well wishes for anyone who is sick, young and old, anyone suffering. I hope and pray that no one, not any of us ever suffer any needless pain. And family members who are watching their loved ones suffer, my prayers go out to all of you too.