Death and Beyond

“The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity.”

I’ve had a lot of experience with death starting when I was 5 years old. I’ve had 3 special neighbors, 1 special teacher and 4 special relatives pass away.

I am going to tell you about one special man that passed away. My uncle Ed had brown hair and brown eyes and he had glasses.

Ed loved the nice fresh outdoor air. He loved the cowboy life and he would always wear a brown, black, or white cowboy hat and wear brown leather cowboy boots. He looked like a natural cowboy with his mustache.

He loved horses and dogs. He used to have a white German Sheppard with beautiful sky blue eyes. His name was Sarge. Ed had to put him to sleep, for he was getting to the point where he could barely walk.

Ed got another dog that was a black border collie with some white on her nose and blue eyes.

Ed asked me, “would I go to the humane society to help me pick out another dog?”

I said “I would be delighted to.”

When we got to the humane society, we looked at a bunch of different dogs from big ones to small ones. We picked out the black border collie.

Ed asked me “should we name her Daisy or gypsy?”

I said “lets name her gypsy.”

Every morning, Ed would take gypsy out for a walk at the mines of Spain for about a hour or a hour and a half. He got up at 4:00 am every morning to give my grandma her eye drops, then he would take gypsy for a walk.

Ed always said “I don’t care how cold it is out I will always take gypsy for a walk I owe it to her.”

On Thursday January 30th, exactly a month after Ed’s birthday, my grandma woke up at 5:00 am to find that Ed didn’t wake her up to give her eye drops.

My grandma wondered what was up so she said “I went to the stairs and looked up to where Ed’s bedroom was and the light was on and I thought he was just getting up, so I yelled his name several times and he wouldn’t answer and gypsy wouldn’t come down stairs so I called the four boys Bill, Bob, Dale, and Ray.”

My aunt Martha came out of her room and said “is something wrong with Ed?”

My grandma said “I think so.”

Ray got there first, so he went up through the living room and up the carpeted stairs. When he got up there Ed’s glasses were on the nightstand and his book right next to him. Ray felt his head which was cold, and then checked to see if he was breathing but he wasn’t. When ray came down, my grandma and aunt were standing at the bottom of the stairs

Ray said “he’s gone.” They thought he was just going to sleep and he had a heart attack. My grandma called 911and they came to get him. When my mom got the call at our house she woke me up and told me. I thought she said my Uncle Denny but she didn‘t. I was in tears because it was such a shock and I didn’t expect It to ever happen.

I asked myself “how am I ever going to get through this school day without everybody asking me what’s wrong and how am I going to concentrate.”

I was so excited when they asked me to read Psalm 23 and the eulogy at his funeral. I knew it would be so important to him. February 2nd was his wake at Behrs funeral home. It was sad when we first got there but then it got better. February 3rd was his funeral at Behrs funeral home. Ed got buried at the memorial gardens south of Dubuque. It was very cold out there and windy just the way my uncle liked it. The only time my grandma broke down was when they gave her the flag that was on his casket. This is one of the many deaths in my life. I am still sad but I know