Donna Jo

I've never blogged about this for some reason. Maybe I was in denial, I don't know. My dad's little sister, my Aunt Donna Jo, was diagnosed with cancer over two years ago. She has fought very long and fought very hard. Things have taken a turn for the worse. She is now in hospice care and she wants to go home this weekend so she can spend her final days there.

She is only 50 years old and none of this seems right to me. My dad is having a hard time but he sent an email out this morning to the family, a poem by Robert Browning. I thought it was a beautiful image:

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then some one at my side says: 'There, she is gone!'
'Gone where?'
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when some one at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: 'Here she comes!' "

It is comforting for me to know that she is on her way to be with our Lord and Savior. She is indeed going home.

I'll keep everyone updated. Please pray for my grandparents, her husband Kerry, and my cousins Tony, Katie and Joey.