Sturtz Stuff

It was a cool day in October. I was standing in the backyard of my parents' home. My Dad had asked me to put up a snow fence that ran across one side of the backyard. My parents' home was at the end of the street and surrounded by farmland on three sides. During the winter months, the wind would blow across the open farmland and pile snow on their driveway. Putting up the snow fence limited the amount of snow that would pile up in the driveway.  My Dad was concerned that he would not be able to get the fence up before winter. By this time my Dad had been fighting cancer for several months and his physical strength had diminished. The chemo treatments along with the aggressive nature of the cancer had zapped his body of energy and muscle mass. Sleeping and feeling tired occurred a lot for my Dad most days. Yet he knew what was happening to him and the more than likely outcome. And he also knew that winter would soon arrive. He had become concerned that without the snow fence, th...

Don’t know if you have ever seen the TV show called Six Feet Under . It was a show about a family that own and operated a funeral home. Each episode started with a short vignette in which someone would die. The character that died in the opening vignette would become the body at the family funeral home for the rest of the episode. There are about six main characters on the show. However, the way that the show was shot, written and produced it made sure that there was one main character that was above all the others and in the forefront of everything that happen to all the other characters. That main character was death. Death was at the forefront of every show. It made the show very challenging to watch. It confronts you with something that we spend most of our lives attempting to ignore. The reason I bring this up is because this is very much like the book of Ecclesiastes. The book’s main character is death. The book constantly brings up the issue of death. Which is a reason why t...