just Now
Oh my. I can’t believe this. Dr. Lu is dead. Linda told me last night, saw it on television, said he died of the flu, Frank Lu, oncologist and hematologist, died Friday. In my long years, I’ve never known a nicer, kinder, more caring physician. Maybe Dr. Powell Adams a lifetime ago, December 1947, I was twelve years old, who came to the house late on a Sunday afternoon, diagnosed me with appendicitis, lifted me out of bed, carried me out to his car (not to be small or distracting, but a gray 1947 Chevrolet Fleetmaster club coupe),
drove me to hospital, and carried me inside, and the next day operated on me.
I saw Dr. Frank Lu just once, over a year ago, on a referral about a blood issue, and he treated me like a lifelong friend, a family member. It passed right by me when his receptionist said, “He’s so nice! You’ll really like him,” and then it was noticeably, almost astonishingly so. For what with most any other doctor, would have been a ten minute appointment, he spent over an hour with me. I can hardly believe this. It brings home that someone said the death of one of us diminishes all of us.
And to me as a priest and pastor, it brings back all those and their loved ones with whom I have walked through such loss, grief. And not only them, but my own family and loved ones, and myself. Whether long extended illness and death, or the shock of instant or almost instant death, as with Ted McLean just now, or even the breakup of a relationship. Most all of us experience it, personally or professionally, vocationally.
For some reason the death of Dr. Lu brings to mind that what we have in life is Now, right Now, just this moment. Tomorrow never comes and history, the past, our past, my past is a construction of my mind, the person next to me doesn’t have the same one I do, all in the mind. As with any conscious creature, animal, It’s always Now, this moment, this instant. Even Time, to me, is a human construct, I don’t have it, I just and only have Now.
DThos+ in 7H
NO ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL AT HNEC THIS MORNING: BETWEEN SERVICES, BREAKFAST AND ANNUAL PARISH MEETING.
drove me to hospital, and carried me inside, and the next day operated on me.
I saw Dr. Frank Lu just once, over a year ago, on a referral about a blood issue, and he treated me like a lifelong friend, a family member. It passed right by me when his receptionist said, “He’s so nice! You’ll really like him,” and then it was noticeably, almost astonishingly so. For what with most any other doctor, would have been a ten minute appointment, he spent over an hour with me. I can hardly believe this. It brings home that someone said the death of one of us diminishes all of us.
And to me as a priest and pastor, it brings back all those and their loved ones with whom I have walked through such loss, grief. And not only them, but my own family and loved ones, and myself. Whether long extended illness and death, or the shock of instant or almost instant death, as with Ted McLean just now, or even the breakup of a relationship. Most all of us experience it, personally or professionally, vocationally.
For some reason the death of Dr. Lu brings to mind that what we have in life is Now, right Now, just this moment. Tomorrow never comes and history, the past, our past, my past is a construction of my mind, the person next to me doesn’t have the same one I do, all in the mind. As with any conscious creature, animal, It’s always Now, this moment, this instant. Even Time, to me, is a human construct, I don’t have it, I just and only have Now.
DThos+ in 7H
NO ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL AT HNEC THIS MORNING: BETWEEN SERVICES, BREAKFAST AND ANNUAL PARISH MEETING.