LIFE and DEATH!!

Hey My Friends!!!! Hope each of you are doing well. It seems to be officially summer time in my world.

Life is beautiful, challenging, easy some days and very difficult on others!

My stepdad Howard “Mac” MacMillan, died last Tuesday evening, May the 30th. Mac was 94 years old. He had lived an amazing life, been very healthy until the last 6-8 months. He had been healthy for a man his age, but this year he was struggling. Mac was in the hospital several times. this last round he was 14-15 days, and it was time for him to go home.

Mac and my mother Carolyn had been married 49 years and 7months. Pretty incredible and this was the second marriage for both. They each would have told you, marriage can be very difficult and marriage can be a huge blessing! Both had lost their first spouse. Mac had a son Hal and mom had my sister Chris and I.

I was able to officiate his funeral, Monday, June 5th. I have always appreciated the opportunity to do that. It reminds me each time of this; We are born a day and time we don’t choose, and we die a day and time we don’t choose. I know some people choose the time to die. That is an entirely different conversation!

The norm for birth is celebration. The norm for death is grief. In my world they are both a significant part of our life here on this earth. There is a healthy reality to both birth and death.

My life began November 8th, 1963 and I don’t know the date for my death. I had never thought much about my death. I was healthy and expected a 50 year marriage celebration with my beautiful wife Natalie. My battle with a terminal brain tumor has reminded me, in very personal ways, I have no idea when my time will be up!! So go live, TODAY!!! Today you and I have some choices. That’s a big deal!

Mac McMillan will be missed. He was a kind man who did so much for so many.

I want to remind others, Mac was “Loved and of Great Value.”