Love`s Grace

Today while reading Beckett Johnson`s note; a fellow Substack writer. I came to a realization of an emotion I buried deep within my self-conscious.

“But grief has a way of pulling you back—to the moments that changed you, to the lessons you didn’t know you were learning.” (Beckette Johnson 3/17/2025)

That sentence and the one`s that followed helped me understand why I was feeling upset with my youngest, when I learned she texted her uncle in the hospital and begged him to hold on so she could come and give him one last hug.

I found her request cruel and selfish and I didn`t understand until today why. Let me try and explain.

My brother has CHF, COPD, is in acute respiratory failure, cancer, has had mini strokes and a host of other issues. He has been struggling to hold onto life for quite a while.

I watched my brother struggle to sign his DNR and DNI. He summoned all his strength to scribble his name so that his wishes would be met. A couple of days into his ICU battle, for the first time in all his hospitalizations, he told me he felt he was not coming home this time.

I had asked God to give me Christmas with him and I promised to let him go after. You can find that posting called (Just Breathe).

Then my youngest informed me that she texted her uncle and asked him to hold on for she wanted one more hug from him. This upset me deeply and I tried to keep those emotions to myself.

I needed to understand why I was angry with her and upset because I didn`t want my brother to pass but I didn`t want to selfishly hold him to this world either.

Within reading Becketts` post, it hit me that our mother waited until I said I was ready to let her go and then she drew her last 2 breaths afterward. I carried that feeling of selfishness of not wanting to say goodbye all these years unwittingly. (19 yrs since mom passed) Maybe it`s the effect that she needed me to release her that in one way fills me with love and in another weighed on my soul.

My girls have always been close to their Uncle. I capitalize Uncle because they did not follow with his name, Billy. He is revered and loved deeply by them, and to them his name is just Uncle.

How could I not have understood that in the moment? I am thankful for that post today. I can now remove those emotions I was feeling, and watch loves grace unfold before my eyes. The bond of a niece and her Uncle, in more than likely last time together. I was only seeing it through my experiences of my emotions during his fight to stay alive.

The rollercoaster of emotions has me joyous with gratitude one moment and in the thralls of grieving his eventual death the next. I wonder how long he`ll hold on after she leaves?

All he has talked about is how he can`t wait to have pictures of himself with her and his great nephew. To show her he hung on for that hug. Who am I to think or judge the bond they have? To think it was somehow selfish of her asking him to hold on for one more hug. Forgive me… as I forgive myself for the same some 19 years ago with our mother. 🥹

I have been blessed with loves grace to be given this insight before her arrival.

Is it intuitiveness? *My heart, head and gut are all now in agreement. (*another insight from Beckett Johnson`s writings)

---

✨Be the Light

side note: Maybe it is the closeness you are to the person passing? (location) I was in the room for both my mother and my father. I traveled 18 hrs. straight to be with my friend who`s grandson passed in the womb, to be of comfort, while her daughter gave birth to an angel. That was rough. My brother lives with me, and I will be by his side when his journey ends.

---