Good friends and fellow missionaries we worked together with in Mexico are going through a season of death right now.  Here is part of a letter we wrote them:

Back to back death with your two brothers takes us back in our memories to when my precious Daddy was ushered into the presence of his Lord and Savior.  I had gone back home for a month just to visit him.  We agreed that as long as he had most of his marbles and would know that I was there, I should visit him every six months.  In God's wonderful plan, I arrived the night before we had to hospitalize him for what turned out to be his final illness.  It was not known before that time that he had liver cancer which had metastasized to his left lung sack.  The specialist told me in the hospital that my 92 year old Daddy would not last beyond the month I had with him.  And indeed, he was buried with full military honors (WW II U.S. Navy) the very day I was to have flown back to Cameroon.  When Jim learned that Daddy was terminal, he caught the first available flight out of Cameroon, hoping to be able to say "good-bye".  But he couldn't make it home fast enough.  While I had never done this either before or since, I phoned each of our sons and told them I really needed them to be at Grandpa's funeral.  They graciously dropped everything and came, leaving wives and children behind.  One of my many cousins gave us a house to live in.  It was the first time we had been just "us" in the better part of 20 years.  What a great blessing it was to be together and to share memories of Grandpa with each other.  Jim was the first to arrive in town.  We picked him up at the airport and were driven to the house my cousin was letting us use.  We hadn't seen each other in a month so had a lot of catching up to do that night.  Skyping and emails are certainly not the same as face to face contact.  Having slept in the next morning, we were eating a late breakfast when the phone call came.  Jim's 95 year old mother had died the night before, right around the time his final plane was touching down at Portland International Airport.  We asked the family to please give us time to bury my Daddy.  And I declared a moratorium on death.  Enough was enough!  (Of course I recognized that I have zero control over death, but made my declaration anyway to any and all who would listen to me.)  We had Daddy's lovely memorial service at his church that Monday.  Since I am one of 46 grandchildren on Daddy's side of the house, the place was packed with cousins and many, many friends.  Tuesday was the military burial with many of the same people in attendance.  Wednesday morning we caught the first flight out of Portland to San Francisco.  Jim's little sister picked us up and took us to her place where the family was gathering.  They were in the midst of a lovely project.  They were dividing up all of Mom's photographs.  What a great way to reminisce together.  On Thursday we put the finishing touches on all the plans for Mom's burial.  On Friday we drove out to a younger brother's place for the grave side service.  It was a quiet, family event.  We were so glad to be there.  Then on Saturday we gathered at Mom's church in Hayward for her memorial service.  David was the only one of our sons who could take more time off work for the second grandparent funeral in a row.  He had flown from Portland to Tucson, picked up his wife and children, and drove to Hayward to be with family.  His sacrifice meant everything to us.  The following day we flew back to Portland, spent the night, and were at the airport early the following morning to send Jim back to Cameroon.  When he arrived back home at Shiloh the following night, he had been gone less than two weeks.  It felt to him like his time in the U.S. was just a dream he had had.  Meanwhile I flew out of Portland a couple of hours after Jim, going on to Tucson where I spent a month.  I had numerous legal things to attend to regarding Daddy's final affairs.  Being surrounded by children and grandchildren made it a whole lot easier.  Everything I needed to do could by done by phone calls and faxes.  I arrived in Tucson in time to learn that [a mutual friend and missionary colleague] had just been ushered into the presence of our Lord.  I cannot tell you how deeply grateful  I was to be in Catalina and not in Cameroon at that moment.  And I quickly lifted my moratorium on death.  It was OK.  God is still in control.  His ways are always and forever the best.  He gives and He takes away.  Blessed be His Holy Name.