Brenneman's World

Oh Death, Where Is Thy Victory?

I never met the elderly lady who took two hours of my day today. She lived alone in a small trailer set in a small yard in an older section of town at the foot of our mountain. Her trailer was heated by a small wood stove. Her husband is in a nursing home where she probably should have been, too. In the front yard, an old Ford pickup was parked at an angle with hay in the front seat and spilling out the slightly opened door to the ground. Bushes crowded close in around the walls of the old trailer so thick it was hard to walk around the trailer.

Now I never will meet her, for you see she burned to death this morning, and there was nothing I could do to help her, nothing that I or any one of the dozens of firefighters and crews who responded to the scene could do. Death apparently came suddenly before the fire actually started burning her body so the Lord apparently allowed her to mercifully die before the fire touched her.

There were more high-ranking police and fire officers than I have seen in quite a while. Her death brought her more attention than she probably received in her lifetime.

Was she ready for her life to be taken? I certainly hope so - and I hope we are, too.

posted by James @ 8:42 PM