But me ye have not always

We are so grateful for all of you who continue to reach out to us. I have read Jacob every blog comment, email, and letter that we've received and they are a great encouragement and lift to us both. Today our yard was heart attacked with notes of love, encouragement and support from our dear church family. It is amazing to see how Heavenly Father shows His love to us through the unnumbered kindnesses of others.

Thank you so very much.

We are so grateful for the people who continue to donate to the Robertson Children's Fund. Those financial gestures of love and support mean a great deal to both me and Jake. I will thank you individually in the future, but wanted to say how much we appreciate that support in behalf of our children.

We are so grateful for our kids. They are such a tremendous source of hope and strength for us and every day we relish being with them, talking to them and feeling of their love. I can see Jake in each of them and am grateful for how their faith is being strengthened through this experience. We freely talk about how their dad is dying and although their hearts are sad they have shown such a capacity to love, to minister and to enjoy their dad while he is still here.

I have been learning a lot about dying. It is my first time seeing the process up close and personal. A friend of mine once mentioned how our culture is sanitized from death and I can see what she means. Most of us have little experience around a dying person, or our loved ones are in the hospital so we cannot have normal contact with them through their final days.

In that vein, we are grateful for hospice. From what I have gathered over the last few weeks, hospice exists to help an individual die in the comfort of their home with the medical attention they need coming to them. For two years we have had to arrange our lives and leave our home to attend medical appointments at the hospital, to get prescriptions filled, and to wait for normal office hours to have some of our questions answered.

Hospice takes away all of those needs. The nurses and doctors come to you. They send medications to your door. They bring in any needed medical equipment to your house. They are on call 24/7 for any questions or concerns and can send a nurse to your home at any time of day or night. It is a welcome change and after spending so much of our time at appointments and a relief to know we have help always available to us.

I've always thought that there are many parallels to the beginning and end of life. When a baby is born they require almost constant care to have their needs met. They cannot eat, get dressed, use the bathroom, get clean, or even move independently but are dependent on their mother and father to see to those needs. The same is true when someone is dying. Usually, dying happens at the end of life when it is more common that individuals face a decline in their abilities. For Jake it is happening when he is 36 (on the brink of 37) years old.

It is getting increasingly harder for him to take care of his personal needs. His ability to move, shower, use the bathroom, eat, and get dressed are deteriorating little by little each day. It is a terribly difficult burden for him. Jake has always been so very independent. He has always seen to his own physical needs and even with his disease has had the ability to take care of those needs for all but the last month. I am grateful for that. With four young children, and especially a baby, it would have been almost impossible for me to physically care for both Tommy and Jacob at the beginning of his illness.

But now it is my opportunity to care for Jacob. I don't think I can adequately describe what a great privilege it is to love my husband in this new, personal and tangible way. It is not something I anticipated when I thought about his death. Initially, thinking about him dying filled me with fear and inadequacy. I was not able to know at that point that caring for him physically would continue to build an unbreakable bond of love between us. I think it is a bond shared more often by couples late in their lives that we are humbled to experience now while we are young.

When our families were here I tried to explain these thoughts to them. I mentioned reading in both Matthew 26:6-13 and Mark 14: 3-9 in the last few weeks about a woman (Mary) who came to anoint the Savior with an alabaster box of very precious ointment. The disciples were troubled when they saw it and asked Him, "To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor." When Jesus understood their saying he said unto them, "Why trouble ye the woman? For she hath wrought a good work upon me. For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always. For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial."

Each time I read this account I was struck with the understanding that this is my opportunity. Jacob is here with me, and now is my opportunity to minister to him. I cannot adequately thank his parents or my mother who have been here to substitute for me in the day to day care of our home and children. Their service has made all of the difference to our family and allowed me an unparalleled ability to care for my dear husband. And Jacob has so graciously and gratefully received my help and in turn blessed my life through the ways he continues to love and minister to me.

It is a sacred experience for us both. It is a gift of grace that makes this bitter experience so inexpressibly sweet, sacred and spiritual.

So although we woke this Easter Sunday knowing that Jacob's physical body is dying, the hope, reality, and meaning of the risen Christ make it possible to bear.

Because He lives, so will Jacob.

Hallelujah.