Holstered

These are examples of handmade holsters other people have made and sell on line. I have been looking for ideas as I have been asked to make 2 leather holsters. The friend who asked is dying of the late stages of liver cancer. I asked that he not accidentally shoot his hospice nurse when she changes his dressings. He told me he just does not want anyone to sneak up on him in his home. He used to be a truck driver and has always had a piece on him when working or staying somewhere. His mother is taking care of him at her home. My friend is only 52 years old and is no longer a candidate for any new cancer treatments nor trials. So to make him happy, I will make these for him. He turns 53 this week and he will not live to see 54. He is the second son to die under their roof in their family. I feel for my friends mother as she helps her son on his last days. The cancer eating away his flesh from the inside out. It is not pretty and does not smell nice. Luckily, he feels none of that as he is with hospice home care. They take care of their own here in the Ozarks. Many choose to die at home with their family like it used to be before nursing homes and hospitals. It seems better all the way around for the dying and their family/friends. 

Hostile Death

I have noticed that a lot of people are hostile about death. Maybe their death, or their friends impending death, or an adult child's death. Lately death has been hard at work taking away many people we know via cancer. People my age and people in their 80's. Death comes swift for some and slowly and painfully for others. Funerals come and go, far flung family arrives, emotions are allover the place. Sometimes you are asked who you are and what are you doing here by a relative. I say, I was here when your loved one was dying. He or she asked for XYZ and I got it done. You are now here and you can carry on with your grief. I am only a friend who was there at the end. Some endings have been salvation, other endings painful questions. But the worst are the accusations from other friends about my choice to overstep their feelings and get the job done. Be it prayers, getting a priest, grocery, farm work, blanket making I get the job done. My friend is dead and I have to live with that person no longer in my life. But you do not know that as you do not know me. Your mom or dad or grandparent or uncle or aunt was my friend and they died. And I hope when I die they are waiting for me on the other side of life with the big man upstairs. I guess I am a fixer. I get the job done. Sometimes I find what was lost, a person, an object, a place, a song or a photo. I bring a moment of peace of mind to that person I got to know while here on this earth. But I am happy in my work as I work around death in all his forms. I can see when he is near and I let him do his job. But I am not hostile to it for I know one day he will come for me.