That was the first time I had smiled, much less laughed, since receiving my Stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis. From that first “Rebekah moment” on, we smiled a lot together. We were on the same basic chemo protocol so we shared our common challenges and complaints, and with the constant encouragement of the Four Winds nurses, doctors, and staff, kept each other positive. Sandra and Rebekah became friends. Her parents – Dave and Rita – became our friends. We looked forward to our days together and were sad when our treatment schedules did not coincide. When that happened, we kept up on Facebook. 

The last time we saw each other was just a couple of weeks ago. She was noticeably thinner but her spirit was as robust as ever. The last message she left was less than a week ago, and it was about drawing strength from rereading the second half of Romans and from knowing that God was standing in front of her …

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Rebekah was a seasoned veteran in her fight against the cancer that this past Wednesday night claimed her life. She was in every way a truly lovely woman who lived her deep and abiding Christian faith. She was strong, she was intelligent, and she was creative - the accomplished Principal and CEO of a marketing consulting firm. She loved her two fine children, she loved her parents (“the best parents in the world” she always said), and she loved her many good friends.

Rebekah radiated love. She also loved music (The Beach Boys, Lady Antebellum, Train, Maroon 5, and others); she loved Monty Python and “chick flics”; she loved roses (“she saw them as God speaking to her,” said her Mother). She loved life. And she lived it well.

Rebekah sponsored a Cancer Walk in Phoenix that was – and I hope will continue to be – very successful. She wore her “Wonder Woman’ costume to it (see the image with this blog), complete with cape, and inspired by her true life “superhero example” those of us who were or are fighting this damned disease, as well as those who are supporting us. 

She was a cheerleader for all of us, and we, in turn, cheered too for her. She brought us together as a community and taught us how to not just live but to celebrate a rich, full, and good life, to enjoy who we are and who we can be for our families, and to delight in the making and doing of everyday life as she understood God intended us to.

It is too small a thing to say, simply, that she will be missed. For those of us who knew her, for those of us who loved her, “missed” doesn’t even come close to the sense of personal loss that we all feel. It is as if a beautiful light has gone out of this world. We don’t just mourn the loss of that light, but what that light allowed us to see, and to be.

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Rebekah died too young. That’s a fact, but it is a fact spoken by me, a mere earthling. Given her faith I’m sure Rebekah believed that how we measure age is not how God measures it.

I hope – and believe – that she entered the glorious afterlife she imagined, that her soul is finally at peace, and that the great mystery beyond “the horizon” of death is one that fully embraces her spirit.

That image of a horizon is why I use the Rossiter Worthington Raymond quotation to begin this blog. The poem “Death is Only a Horizon,” inspired by a reading of the Holy Bible, expresses a way of thinking about death I think Rebekah shared. In its entirety:

O God, who holdest all souls in life; and callest them unto thee as seemeth best: we give them back, dear God, to thee who gavest them to us. But as thou didst not lose them in the giving, so we do not lose them by their return. For not as the world giveth, givest thou, O Lord of souls: that which thou givest thou takest away: for life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only the horizon, and the horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

Thank you, Rebekah Smith Whitehouse. We did not have a chance to know you nearly as long as we would have liked to. But without that time that we did share, neither would we have learned how to live with cancer nearly so well. You helped us. You helped to heal us.

You were already on the higher path of heavenly angels. And I think we always knew it.

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