The Visit

Visiting. From my point of view, the simple art of visiting may be on the verge of extinction. When I was a young boy, visiting was commonplace. You might even say it was a popular form of entertainment. The normal time for visiting was on Sunday afternoon. Whole families would travel to "visit" friends or relatives. Once everyone was settled in, the visiting would commence. Just plain good conversation. Hours of it. And believe it or not, I was normally perfectly happy just sitting there and listening to the "grown ups" talk.

I was happily reminded of this old custom earlier today (Sunday), as I traveled to my older brother Bill's home for a visit. Bill, his wife Carol and I had a good old fashioned visit. It went on for about four hours, during which time we covered everything from recent family events, to reminiscing about our childhood, to our faith and our churches. Although I have somewhat of a reputation of being a man of few words, I believe I held up my end of the conversation. All in all, a very pleasant afternoon.

As is so often the case, though, this visit was not just a part of a normal pattern of events. It was brought about by Bill's impending surgery. You see, Bill was diagnosed with stomach cancer just before Christmas. His doctors believe that the cancer is completely contained therein, and so on Tuesday they will remove his stomach. I have to say that I find Bill's faith inspiring. He says that he knows where he is going, so he just looks at it as another of life's adventures. For those of you who are Christians; please take a moment to pray for my brother Bill.