by Ann Scott

Created on: October 22, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

After the first two years of our marriage, my husband's cousin married a girl from another town. She was a beautiful young lady and they moved into our community. She and I became fast friends, even before they married, as she had been coming to our church for some time. I had grown to like her very much, and we seemed to get along very well.

After they married, we began to visit them, and being singers, she and I talked our husbands into starting a quartet. We went many places in the community and surrounding communities to different churches, to sing. We had a couple of young men who went with us and played the guitar and drums. We traveled a lot of places singing and enjoying being together and having fun.

When my son was born, she loved him and enjoyed being around the baby. She and her husband never had children, so she just adopted everyone else's as her own.

As time went on, we grew apart somewhat, as each of us had our own lives. She and her husband began to travel around a lot, and of course, with us having children, we did not go much, so we just sort of drifted away from each other. Part of the time they were going to churches in different areas, and even moved away for awhile.

As usually happens, though, they came back home. They began to attend our church again, and we formed a ladies' quartet with some more ladies in our church, and sang together for several years. Our lady's quartet also went to many different churches through the years, singing gospel music.

A few years back, my husband and I moved about 35 miles away from her and our church family. We began to make new friends, since we did not see them very often. In her later years, she one day began, unexpectedly, to write. She wrote several books and self-published them. She was so proud of her work, and it was very good. I read her first draft for some of them. She began her writing before we left that community, and I lived near enough to read her work for her, so I did.

One day after we had been gone from that community for about four years, I decided to call and talk to her for awhile about her books and her writing. had been writing some, also. We talked and visited for quite some time, and she told me of other things that she was working on. I had read the story of her life that she had written. It was very interesting. She had never published that one.

While I was reading her biography, I got word that she was really sick. She had been to the doctor several times, and then they told her that she had cancer. I could not believe what Id heard. She had been so happy and was so looking forward to more writing, the day I had talked to her.

I called her again shortly after that and told her how sorry I was to hear of her bad news. She seemed to be taking it very well, and told me about it. She had to go through a series of Chemo and Radiation treatments, but she just kept getting worse. A few short days ago she gave up her life here on Earth. I know that she is happy where she is today. She has made it to her Heavenly home, which she had worked, and lived for, the greater part of her life.

It wasn't so much the unexpectedness of her death, because we knew, since she had cancer, that she was probably going to go, but it was more the shock of hearing about her having cancer. Cancer is such a dreaded disease, and it is a frightening word. Some beat it and others give up their lives to it, but I know that she is happier now than she has ever been in her entire life. She has made it to the place where we all long to go. I plan to go see her again one day, and we will visit for as long as we desire to.

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