Mike Osborne is currently the Senior Producer of the KNLS English Language Service.  Mike has served the New Life Station since 1984 and was the host of KNLS transmissions for many years.

My Aunt Faye passed away last week. She died at eighty years of age after a long, hard fought battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

During her funeral service it dawned on me that Aunt Faye was an absolutely brilliant military strategist, even though she never served a single day in the armed forces.

Faye Pumphrey was a small, genteel lady from the American south. She was well known for her grace and hospitality, not her battlefield prowess. In fact, she led a simple, quiet life that revolved around home and family and faith.

But thinking about Aunt Faye’s decade long struggle with Parkinson’s Disease, it occurs to me that she managed to pull off what military historians consider the most difficult of all battle field maneuvers: retreat in the face of a superior enemy.

Are you familiar with Parkinson’s Disease? Parkinson’s is an aggressive and debilitating neurological disorder. Like an advancing army it destroys brain cells, slowly wresting away control over mind and body. There is no cure.

I only managed to see Aunt Faye once every six months or so in her last years. So it was always a shock to see how badly her physical condition had deteriorated between visits. The last time we spoke she suffered non-stop tremors, her speech was halting and her thoughts scattered.

But what struck me most about my brief visits with Aunt Faye was her fierce determination to give up as little ground as possible. She fought her disease for every last inch of body function and mind. The Parkinson’s might have had her in retreat, but it was never a route. Surrender wasn’t even considered.

Every time I saw Aunt Faye she was always nicely dressed with her hair done and her makeup just right. She would smile and we would talk about every day things. Mostly we spoke of family; who was getting married who was having babies and who had passed away.

Only now does it occur to me to wonder how much those visits cost my Aunt Faye. It must have been exhausting to push the Parkinson’s Disease into the background for a few minutes so that we could talk about ordinary things.

Where did she find the courage to go on fighting? Where did she learn to retreat from this life and into the next with such dignity and grace?

Aunt Faye’s battlefield success seems less surprising when you learn that she was a devoted servant of Jesus Christ. The Christian Messiah was her life long teacher and Aunt Faye learned her lessons well.

Another devoted disciple of Jesus, the Apostle Paul, once confidently proclaimed, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Eventually, we are all forced from the field of battle by death. But for those who call Jesus Christ "Lord and Savior" retreat does not mean defeat. Aunt Faye may have lost her battle against Parkinson’s Disease, but she won life’s most important victory.

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