Friday, August 21

My Friend Pastor Sherry

Earlier this week I was in the Riviera at Seaside Apartment complex in Mt. Pleasant visiting one of my sons who is staying there in a Stalin era architectural style apartment while he and his wife decide where they will buy a new home. 

This business and residential community is next to Franke at Seaside where I lived prior to my marriage in March 2013. I stopped by to visit my good and dear friend Pastor Sherry Owensby-Sikes, the Lutheran Minister in residence at Franke. I knew she has been battling cancer for the third time in her life, and I was extremely pleased to see her positive, outgoing, "this can be licked" attitude.

Pastor Sherry was wearing a turban and she asked if I wanted to see her head. "Yes," I said, and she removed the turban.  We laughed. Then she called a co-worker to come to her office and take this picture of two baldies. The good part is her hair is starting to grow back in but it is too late for me. Before I saved my head I had that General MacArthur style of hair where three strands were combed over to the side. Gauche in this day and age.

My good and dear friend, Pastor Sherry

My prayer and that of all our friends at Franke and elsewhere are for Pstor Sherry's fight against this latest challenge. We are confident if it can be overcome, she will do it.
God Bless.

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Monday, August 10

Joyce L. Archibald, R.I.P.

It is with a shocked and sad heart that I inform my friends and others that my wife Joyce L. Archibald died on Sunday, August 9, 2015 at around 11 a.m at Landmark Acute Care Hospital in Savannah, GA.

Joyce went there on July 24 after being in the ICU at Hilton Head Hospital for 11 days. We anticipated she would have a recovery at Landmark but she was unable to breathe without a breathing machine and her condition deteriorated after that.

Joyce was an active woman all her life, a fine business woman, a golfer for almost 40 years, she had six holes-in-one, a tremendous feat. She had left instructions that she did not want aggressive medical actions to prolong her life. She could not have lived as she desired with a breathing tube in her throat and a feeding tube in her stomach.

Joyce's son David Perkins and his wife Carol with here for the week preceding Joyce's passing. Her second son, William, had been here several days earlier. My five children and spouses were on hand this week as well. 

Joyce and I were married on St. Patricks Day in 2013. We loved and enjoyed each other in the time we had together. She was a wonderful companion, a friend to all, loved her family and me.
Our wedding

A couple of minutes before Joyce died, I led the family in saying prayers I learned as a child: The Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. When we finished, Joyce breathed her last. 

I believe Joyce would like us to remember her as in Tennyson's Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.