Page 10 - Summer 2019 - Lubbock Senior Link Magazine - Online Magazine
P. 10
HONORING SENIORS
attending Quaker
Avenue Church
of Christ where
I am a member.
This was a time of
much hardship for
them. Their son
Mark was battling
an addiction to
prescription pain
medication which
Sharing Life: he had begun
taking because of
a college football
The Definition of Mentoring injury. Shortly after
moving here, Carola
was diagnosed
by Leslie McCullough with colon cancer.
was scared because I had and funerals. In fact, the After going through
breast cancer, and I would be first time I met Marlin, chemotherapy and
starting chemotherapy the next he was officiating my great uncle surgery, she eventually recovered.
I morning, so I chose to spend Check Reeves’ funeral in Portales. Not long after her recovery, Mark
the evening with Marlin and Carola Marlin, in his gentle and hope-filled came to stay with them. He had
Poynor. I knew they would be able manner, honored my uncle who gone through numerous treatment
to empathize with and mentor me was a WWII Veteran as he told the facilities and had decided that this
because of their own experiences story of the sinking of the Naval time he would try to go through
with cancer and chemotherapy. ship, the USS Indianapolis. My great detox on his own. They watched
They have also experienced the uncle was on this ship when it was and cared for him as he endured
difficult suffering of having a son torpedoed, forcing him to spend the sleeplessness, hallucinations,
pass away, and yet they exhibit four days floating in the shark- and other sufferings of detox. After
a peaceful trust in God and an infested Pacific Ocean. Marlin returning to his home, he began
exuberant zest for life. My husband, earned my respect with the way he to take the pills
Kevin, and I had so much fun that conducted again. He passed
evening, staying up late playing that funeral, away after three
cards with them, that I was able to and I felt an days of being
forget the fear and anxiety of what immediate back on the pills,
I was going through. Marlin told connection because the
me, “You have to see a light at the with him, amount that he
end of this tunnel.” I am now in though I had taken before
remission, but that phrase continues had no way was now an
to influence my thinking. of knowing overdose. In the
that he years following,
Through the success of their White’s would they would talk of
Auto Store in Portales, New Mexico, eventually this loss often, and
being on the board of the Christian become an the very real pain
Children’s Home in Portales, and important in their voices
preaching in various places, this part of my life. was evident. Now, they talk more
couple has been influential in many of what a great man their son was
people’s lives, which has led to A few years later, Marlin and Carola and their peace in knowing that he
Marlin performing many weddings moved to Lubbock and began is no longer suffering, that he is in
10 Lubbock Senior Link
