Lying awake alone in the pitch dark living room, I stared outside through the southern windows of the cabin, where moon and starlight reflected off the snow. The world around me glowed a dim bluish color. To the east, the sky glowed orange thanks to the lights of Fairplay bouncing off the frozen atmosphere. 

I was exhausted, yet my mind still reeled with thoughts to and about the Lord, keeping me awake and a little afraid. In a way, I was reliving the deaths of my grandparents. While it wasn't painful enough to make me cry, my heart still throbbed from the sting of death. I reflected upon how I didn't fear my own death, but I was absolutely petrified of the very inevitable fact that, unless I died in some freak accident, I was going to bury more close family and friends. I was gonna watch the people closest to me grow older, sicker, and more frail. I was gonna have to make some excruciatingly difficult end-of-life decisions for some of my loved ones, like my aunt, uncles, and father did for their parents. 

With that thought, a sudden forgotten memory bubbled to the surface. I recalled being in my aunt's car with my dad riding shotgun. We were headed back to grandma and grandpa's farm after spending some time on the shores of Lake Peppin. While I sat in silence, watching out the window as cropland and pastures flew past, my dad and aunt were discussing their parents' end-of-life care, knowing that grandma and grandpa were getting old, and grandpa's health was no longer where it should've been. 

"If Dad goes first, taking care of Mom won't be that hard..." I remembered my dad saying, "But, if Mom goes-"

"Then Dad's care will fall onto our shoulders." my aunt Stacy interrupted him, "If Dad is forced into a nursing home, he'll probably disown us and die really fast. He's been adamant about dying in the same house he's lived in since childhood. And, I want his wish to be fulfilled..."

Little did we know that, over a decade later, my grandpa Bob's wish was granted, though it wasn't exactly a peaceful death. As dramatic and traumatizing as it was for everyone who received grandma's phone-call about my grandpa's fourth heart attack, and for my uncle Wes to arrive just as EMTs from Rochester were landing their rescue-copter in the yard. My grandpa's wish to die on the farm he was raised on was fulfilled, as tragic and shocking as his death was. 

Then, not even four years later, my grandma also died on the farm, but in a much more peaceful way, as her death was expected and hospice made her extremely comfortable. But, just because she died in her bed (which had been moved into the main room), pain-free and under a heated blanket, while almost my entire family were seated just inches away at the dining table, playing Euchre, drinking Busch Light, all while bluegrass quietly played from the same speaker Wes and Jess had brought to the cabin, it didn't make her death any easier for anyone to deal with. Nothing could've prepared any of us for my grandma's final breath. Nothing could've softened that blow. 

Not even our faith in everlasting life and in an infinitely loving and caring Creator. 

"Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, Lord, by and by

There's a better home a-waitin'

In the sky, Lord, in the sky..."