When Your Job Here is Done

Andy Rooney

I just read that the lovable 60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney has died, just a month after signing off the show for the last time. Have you ever noticed that people who are living their destiny die almost immediately after they stop doing it? 

Charles Schulz

The first person who came to mind for me was Peanuts creator Charles Schulz. He died on February 12, 2000. His very last Peanuts cartoon strip, drawn just a few weeks before, ran (as already scheduled to be his last) the next day, February 13, 2000. Prophetic. His job here on earth was done.

Helen Wagner

Helen Wagner, who played Nancy Hughes McClosky on As The World Turns (ATWT), filmed her last scenes for the soap opera in March 2010 and died a few months later in May. Helen holds the distinction of uttering the first words ever spoken on the television version of ATWT, being the one on camera in 1963 when Walter Conkrite interrupted to tell the world that President Kennedy had been shot and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest run in a single role on television. Coincidentally, the show, one of the longest running soap operas in history, went off the air forever in September 2010.

Steve Jobs

And then, of course, there was Steve Jobs, the infamous founder of Apple. Just six weeks after resigning (albeit to due to illness), died at his home in October 2011.

Amidst all these celebrities, I can’t help but think of my mom, who died at the age of 60 earlier this year. Yes, it was the cancer that ultimately made her stop working. But as she battled it for two years, undergoing chemo, radiation and even surgeries, she continued to work. She worked until September 2010 and died a few months later in January 2011. I still cannot believe she worked up until then. My dad’s story was very similar – not long after he retired is when his cancer was discovered. He, too, fought the disease and continued what I believe was his true calling – being our daddy – right up until the very end.
It’s funny. Most of us dream about the day we can retire and enjoy our lives. It seems like these folks were already enjoying their lives to the fullest and when the joy of doing what they did was taken away, they could just move on to a better place. I guess they’re still living the dream, in that respect. Why stick around on earth when you could be in Heaven, enjoying all that it has to offer?

Being a mommy.

Being a daddy.

Emails from Beyond

What happens to all the stuff people leave behind when they die? For months, my siblings and I have been sorting through all of mom’s possessions – literally one by one, deciding who wants what. And because my mom died only eight years after her dad (our grandpa lived to be 95), we sorted through all of our grandparents’ things too. We literally found receipts from grandpa’s Texaco station from the 1940s and 50s. I come by my hoarding honestly, let’s just put it that way. It was a painstaking, emotionally and physically draining process.

And then there are things you don’t think about, like mom’s facebook page and email account. This week, her email account was hacked and sent out spam emails to everyone in her list. The first one went to my sister-in-law and it said, "Do you want stop time and be forever young?" and of course referenced a website. My first thought: my mom always said she'd have fun haunting us from beyond. Yep, there was no doubt in my mind, this was mom having a little fun up in Heaven. Then I got an email from her account asking if I wanted to know how to enlarge a certain body part I don’t have. So last night, I logged onto mom’s email, deleted about 4,000 junk emails and changed her password. I also unsubscribed to all the crazy emails she was receiving. I guess we could cancel her email account, but I’m not ready for that just yet. Maybe I’m hoping she can figure out how to send a real email message from Heaven.