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Barbara Brabec’s
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Personal Musings About Life

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March 2026

Thoughts on the Reality of Loss and Death

There’s something about turning 40 that wakes us up and makes us look at life through different eyes. Few people want to think about the eventual end of their lives, but sooner or later, we all must accept that we won’t live forever.

This post shares my turning-forty thoughts compared to how I see loss and death now at more than twice that age. At 40, I knew little about death, having lost only two grandfathers by that time and no close friends. I loved my grandfathers but had no deep emotional attachment to them, so it was easy to accept that they died simply because they were old. After turning 40, however, I finally accepted my mortality and was trying to face the fact that someday I would start losing family members or friends that I loved deeply.

One year later, I came face-to-face with the reality of death. In quick succession, I lost two close friends, one from cancer, and the other from a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Both were my age, which was quite a blow. In a letter to a friend, I wrote that life suddenly seemed more precious to me than it ever had before. “I've been thinking I might not live out the next year, and I have this terrible urge to put my house and life in perfect order.”

Does that happen to everyone in their forties, I wondered? At this time, the magazine that Harry and I had published for five years had just gone out of business due to a recession. Harry had lost his job, and our marriage was on shaky ground, so I naturally journaled my feelings in writing. Below, I’m sharing the prose I wrote then in case anyone in their forties is having similar thoughts:

Midlife Meanderings

When I’m alone, I silently wonder
if the last twenty years have been a big blunder.
I think, who am I, and where am I going,
and how do I get there with an ill wind blowing?

A midlife crisis—that’s what I’m having!
My emotions are raw from too little salving.
I look in the mirror, and what do I see?
A woman who’s changed! Where is the old me?

My hips are now spreading, my breasts slowly sagging,
My chin has grown double, and my spirit is flagging.
What’s wrong?” asks my husband, who can’t figure me out.
“It’s nothing,” I answer. “I’m simply worn out.”

I didn’t stay down for long because it’s not my nature to brood. Harry found work, and I played house for a couple of years until a book publisher who had followed my magazine writing asked me to write my first book. Creative Cash was published in 1979 and was such a success that I soon found myself on the path to self-employment as a writer, speaker, and publisher.

A Different Picture 45 Years Later

Age gives us a different perspective on loss and death; the older we get, the deeper our feelings of loss as we grieve loved ones.

In July 2022, I lost Jerry, one of my closest high school Christian friends, a widower I’d rekindled a relationship with in 2017 at a high school reunion. We had a sweet telephone friendship for nearly five years, and we shared our lives up until about a week before he died. It strengthened my faith to see how peaceful he was at the end, quietly waiting for God to call him home. His death was hard for me because he was the second close friend I’d walked with by phone until the very end. 

A year later in July, two more of my closest high school chums, Kay and Lily, died within a week of each other. I’d been in close phone contact with Kay most of my life up until her dementia made it impossible to communicate. I don't know if I'll see either of them in heaven, but in my last meaningful conversation with Kay, she said she was studying her Bible. I took that opportunity to share the Gospel with her and invited her to say the sinner's prayer, which she repeated after me. I could only hope that she believed what she'd said, because that was my last conversation with her in her right mind. 

In 2024, I lost two more of my oldest Christian friends, Joan in March, and Rita in September. I communicated with both of them until shortly before their deaths. Both knew they were dying, and again my faith was strengthened by how calm and unafraid they were right up to the end.

Rita, a Christian confidant for more than forty years, was like another sister to me, one who was always ready to talk after she retired due to poor health. When the pandemic began, and her health worsened, we began to talk for an hour or more every Sunday afternoon at 4:30, never running out of things we wanted to share. What’s unusual here is that we never met in person. She happened to buy a copy of Creative Cash, which she found at a garage sale, and wrote to me. I answered, and our enduring friendship began. I always saw her as a gift from God, so the hole she left in my heart won’t be filled until we meet for the first time in heaven.

Fighting the Good Fight

Life has never been easy for me, but it got a lot easier once I knew that God had a plan for my life (Jeremiah 29:11) and was working all things together for my good (Romans 8:28). As I’ve documented in two memoirs—and in another one to be published in 2026—I’ve had a wonderful life with few regrets.

I used to think I’d probably depart this world kicking and screaming, “Wait, I’m not done yet!” But I see life much differently now than in my forties because I’ve been walking with Jesus for 32 years and am a happy and contented old Christian writer with some juice still left in me. When I know I’m at the end of my life—assuming I’ll get some kind of warning—I want to go quietly into that good night with a smile and gratitude for the good life God granted me here on earth. Till then, I will strive to “fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

Psalms 90:10 tells us, “The days of our life are seventy years, or eighty if we have the strength,” so I am truly blessed to still be here. I don’t worry about my departure date because God put it in His calendar before I was born, and my reservation in heaven is assured. But to make it easy for the family I will leave behind, I still feel the need to put my house and life in order. How comforting it is to know that I will eventually go to a far better place, right into the arms of Christ, and that I’ll be greeted by family members and friends who arrived before me. But I pray, given my bad memory now, that I’ll be able to remember all their names.

A Parting Reminder: There are only two places we can go after death: heaven or hell. And the choice is ours. God sent Jesus to Earth so he could die on the cross for us. God punished Him for our sins, and he took the wrath we deserve so we can experience God’s mercy and grace. He died so that we could be set free, and then He rose from the grave to walk with every sinner who would trust in Him. If you are not yet walking with Jesus, I pray you will get on your knees and ask God to forgive your sins and take residence in your heart.

“When Jesus gets into the boat of your life, He doesn’t guarantee you a smooth sail; He just guarantees you a smooth landing. Fear looks at the storm; Faith looks at the Savior.” – Pastor James Merritt, Touching Lives

Recommended article by Pastor Adrian Rogers, “Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?”

P.S. Visit the HOME page for Timely Quotes and links to Featured Articles of the month. Thanks for linking others to Barbara Brabec’s World.

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Musings About Life posts
Published in 2026

February 2026: My Encounter with the Living God. God has a plan for your life that will astonish you once you give Him the reins and trust Him to work all things together for your good.

January 2026: My $2,000 Guardian Angel Miracle. Every day, God sends His angels to guard His people on earth. I’ve journaled many instances when I believed I had angelic help. Here’s the story of one of them. 

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