Kentucky Hauntings(46)

She read, made lists of favorite things and places, and gave Lee cooking lessons. She and Lee watched the documentaries they had made and relived the wonderful moments of their life together. Joy said she'd had a wonderful life, that she had seen most of the world, and that she had no regrets.

As Christmas approached Joy sent out special Christmas cards with a picture of Lee and her taken the year before at Death Valley. People had to smile at her sense of humor. Christmas came and went, and December ended. Her two months were up, but Joy was very much alive!

In January, Joy invited six of her and Lee's closest friends (Ben and Sonia, Tami and Andy, and Roberta and Lonnie) to celebrate their forty-ninth wedding anniversary. By then, Joy was getting tired easily, so she put a possible time limit on the visit. It was a happy occasion, with no shadow of death spoiling the party.

On Valentine's Day, she had the same six people over. She loved planning these get-togethers, and she saw to it that everybody had a great choice of Valentine desserts to eat.

On Lonnie's birthday on February 28, Joy again invited the same six people to a party. Her rules this time were that the men had to wear suits and the women had to wear dresses. Joy wore a party dress and jewelry and looked better than anybody! It was a birthday Lonnie will never forget.

Joy was doing so well that she began to plan a St. Patrick's Day party for March 17. All these celebrations were held with the understanding that the guests would leave if Joy got tired.

Joy had always eaten healthy foods, but she suddenly surprised everybody by beginning to crave fast food, like Quarter Pounders, or sausage, biscuits, gravy, and eggs.

Since Lee couldn't leave Joy alone to go to the fast food restaurants, Lonnie happily became her banker and delivery man. Joy gave Lonnie money to keep so he could go get her whatever she wanted whenever she called. Joy would gobble the food and say, “Lonnie, this stuff won't hurt you, especially if you're dying anyway!”

March brought early flowers. Joy looked out the window and saw the first crocus of spring blooming in her yard. Lee picked it and put it in a vase for her. At first, it turned to the window for sunlight like all flowers do, but Lee turned it back toward Joy and it never turned away again.

Joy's St. Patrick's Day party was not to be. The cancer began to make noticeable changes. She was no longer strong enough to have people come around to visit.

The day of Roberta's last visit to Joy was a little different from the others. As Roberta started to leave, Joy took her hand and smiled.

“I want to thank you for all you have done for me,” she said.

“I was happy to do what I could,” Roberta told her. “I love you!”

“I love you, too,” she said.

“I'll see you later,” Roberta said to Joy, but as she left, she knew she had seen her friend for the last time.

Joy died peacefully on March 23, 2011, with just Lee by her side. It was five months later than the two months the doctors had predicted Joy would live from the time the cancer was diagnosed. If Death had been lurking around to see Joy's spirit break, he was sorely disappointed.

The day Joy died had been filled with severe storm warnings. But they were lifted, and at the exact moment of her death, a friend snapped a picture of the sky. It was filled with a bright light like a sunburst! It was as if the heavens had opened to welcome her in.

When the hearse came to take Joy away, Roberta stood in her driveway to say a silent good-bye to her friend. Suddenly, thunder shook the whole street, and lightning, in the most vivid shades of pink, purple, and gold, danced above Lee and Joy's house. The rain came down gently. As the undertakers carried Joy out of the house, the rain stopped and the sky was calm.

Joy's service was exactly as she wanted it to be. She and Lee had made a DVD together celebrating her life. It said what she wanted to say.

Later, when Lee took Joy's ashes to be scattered at sea as she had requested, small-craft warnings were posted along the coast. The captain and first mate of the boat Lee had hired told Lee they couldn't go out very far because of the choppy water. But at the moment Lee scattered Joy's ashes, the sea became calm. It remained calm all the way back to shore.

Several odd things have happened since Joy's passing that make Lee, Roberta, and Lonnie think that Joy may be coming back now and then to visit. Lee has written his own experiences, but there was one that the three of us shared.

On July 4 of the year Joy died, Lee came across the street for a short visit with Roberta and Lonnie. The three of them were sitting in the living room, talking, when all of them heard the kitchen door open and close. They heard footsteps crossing the room. Lonnie went to the kitchen and checked the door, but it was still closed and locked. No one was there. He came back and sat down, but then they all heard the footsteps again.