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IN LOVING MEMORY OF BARBARA, MY SISTER
A TRIBUTE
Barbara L. Murray
Born: November 4, 1933 - Died: June 10, 1998.
We will miss her sorely!
Barbara had been recently diagnosed with a large tumor growing on her pancreas. She was slated for surgery at the Washington County Hospital, Hagerstown, Maryland on June 10 to remove it. It was then discovered that there were more tumors in the general area. Complications during surgery led the physicians to shorten the procedure and remove her to the Intensive Care Unit.
Barbara passed away later that day, having never regained consciousness following the surgery. The tumors were cancerous, which had metastacized and the prognosis for the future, if she had lived beyond the surgery, was not good, a few months, at best.
She is survived by her husband, W. Thomas Murray of Hagerstown; their son and daughter-in-law, Richard A. and Nina Murray of Cockeysville, MD; a half sister, Margaret F. Palmer of Hagerstown, a foster-brother, William Dixon of Charlestown, WV; three brothers, Ralph E. Coyle of Hagerstown, Rev. C. David Coyle of Cleveland, GA and Donald L. Coyle of Newburg, NY; one granddaughter, Erin; Nephews, Scott, Timothy and Marc; Nieces, Karen, Diane, Terrie, Cherie, Amy and Laura.
She ran her own home-based business, Rusty's Yarn Box, making afghans and crocheted items to sell at craft fairs and flea markets throughout the area.
She was a 50 year member of her home church, Grace United Methodist Church, formerly Grace E. U. B. Church and a member of the Willing Workers Sunday School class.
Barbara was a member of American Legion Post #211 Auxilary Post of Funkstown, MD; Ladies of the Elks #378; the AARP; Washington County Retired Teachers Association; the West End Senior Citizens; and the Hagerstown Travel Club.
Barbara worked for the Washington County Board of Education for 32 years before her retirement in 1988. She had been a secretary at the Board of Education and the T.V. Center, then, finally she was secretary at the Conococheague Elementary School.
Funeral services were held at the Gerald N. Minich Funeral Home, 10:30 A.M., Monday, June 15, 1998. Burial followed at Cedar Lawn Memorial Park. Services were presided over by the Reverends Robert S. Barton and Darryl C. Zoller.
Barbara was preceded in death by her father, Ralph M. Coyle; her mother, Mildred E. (Cullers) Coyle; her infant sister, Mary Ellen Coyle.
COMFORT
By: William Cullen Bryant
The power who pities man has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of joy and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bid an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear,
And Heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all His children suffer here.
As we watch reruns of "Family Affair", the sitcom from the 60's, I see a lot of similarity between fiction and real life. In that show, kindly Uncle Bill takes in his nieces and nephew after the decease of their parents. There is an older (teenaged) sister and the twins who are much younger. Sissy (the elder sister) is the center of stability and the kid who interprets an adult world to her younger siblings and offers assurance.
In our family, Barbara was the adult sibling to three little boys. She was the big sister who expressed interest, love and who modeled positive traits of adulthood from within the realm of "siblingness". She was, at times, a sort of extra mother, when one was needed. She was a grown up we didn't always have to listen to. Not all the time, anyhow. Her house gave us a an extra place to go and get into things. We were boys and boys get into things. Her son, Rick was more of another little brother than a nephew. There are only five years differing in our ages.
As we grew up and got out on our own, her house was one of the two rallying points when we came home to Hagerstown, Maryland. Our mother was the first and foremost until her death in 1983. Our father had already died several years earlier, in 1966. Barbara sort of became the central character in our family life and inter-communications. She was the medium who kept us all in contact with each other, supplying ever-changing addresses and so on. She was, in a very real sense, the center of our family's existence. She was the hub, around whom all of us moved in the business of our individual lives. I think every family has one. She was our's.
She was the constant, the one element that never changed in the constantly reshaping mass that was our family. She became the repository of the records, the documents, the executor of the difficult things, which required a calm-intelligence and a secretary's sense and persistence that was her's.
Barbara retired from a vocation but she never retired from life. She has had her share of difficulties, as all of us do, which she met head-on, with a sense of reality, understanding and tenacity. She was no quitter nor a shirker, in any sense.
I can't recall ever hearing her complain about her miseries or ailments, and she's had a few. We usually knew about any surgery or sickness after the fact and it was always mentioned in passing. She would accept the diagnosis, submit to the treatment and work through it. That is what she set out to do this time. But this time it was too big and maybe, she accepted that, too. I don't cry much, but I wept - a lot.
She was not some insignificant, or nameless person who slipped quietly away into history to be remembered no more. She was our sister; we loved her; we depended upon her; we lost her from our midst and there is an unfillable and unfathomable void left. We are left with pain at her passing. The aches will in time subside, but will never be entirely quelled. We will never again talk on the phone, or correspond, or visit back and forth with her and we will miss that, deeply. But our affection is still there and so are the memories, and they are most dear to us now.
I am the Way,
so just follow Me
Though the way be rough
and you cannot see...
I am the Truth
which all men seek,
So heed not false prophets
nor the words that they speak...
I am the Life,
and I hold the key
That opens the door
to eternity.
By: Helen Steiner Rice
Musical Selection: "PROMISE"
"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die"....(John 11: 25-26)
"Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.
For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy [singing] cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30: 4-5, {emphasis is mine}).
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