In honor of my brother-in-law Dr. Raymond Sever

In the hospital bed, set up downstairs, lays my brother-in-law Dr. Raymond Sever. Pancreatic cancer is slowing taking his life inch-by-inch, pound-by-pound, breath-by-breath. As he shared with us about a year and a half ago, “People do not die of this cancer, but rather they simply starve to death.” It is sad to bear witness to this tragedy of life for here is a man who means so much to so many people. As one of his daughters shared, during his retirement party, “Everybody loves my dad.” No truer words have ever been spoken.

Ray loves life. He was very active – tennis, jogging, golf – unless he was sitting and reading. He was an avid reader until it just took too much energy and effort to hold up a book or his I-pad (where he loved to read the New York Times). He was one of the few physicians, his specialty is ophthalmology, that actually read those thick medical journals that you can see laying around a doctor’s office. He had a mind that seldom, if ever, shutdown. To say that Ray was brilliant is an understatement. He started college at the age of 16 and is a graduate of Harvard (Master’s degree) and the University of Miami (Doctor of Medicine degree).

Shortly after he married Jan, they attended a conference where the lecturer was Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. The large auditorium was filled to capacity. At the beginning of her lecture she asked, “Who can say that they are doing what they were meant to be doing in life and enjoying it?” Ray’s hand was only one of maybe half-dozen hands raised in the entire auditorium. I asked him once what he planned on doing if and when he retired, “I would love to join up with a university to do a little teaching and research.”

He would get excited about the latest and newest discoveries in medicine. It would energize him. He called a few years back all excited about the latest news concerning Macular Degeneration and a treatment for the wet type of this eye disease. Actually, in our next visit to their home, he just had to take us to the office to show us some slides of this latest breakthrough. He was like a kid in a candy store.

I asked him recently what he felt was his greatest accomplishments in life. His response was his medical practice. Helping people with their eyesight. Now here was a man that had received many honors, one of which was the Iron Arrow while at the University of Miami – this is the highest honor that any student can receive at that university. Here was a man who always graduated at the top of his class. Here was a man who worked with the astronauts in the early years of that program. Here was a man that the city of Temple Terrace pursued to come and set up a practice in their city. But, in his estimation, his greatest accomplishment was helping people keep their eyesight. One of my colleagues, The Rev. Dr. Bill Roughton, shares with everyone near us whenever our paths cross, “Jim’s brother-in-law Ray saved my eyesight. I am eternally thankful for that great man!”

His son, Ben, said it best in a recent letter he wrote to his dad. Ben shared his observation that on the one day Ray took Ben with him to the office, during one of those “take your son to work” events, that when Ray walked in the office lit up. Smiles crossed everybody’s face. Ray literally changed the atmosphere of the office simply by walking into the office … and this is a large medical practice with multiple doctors and all the support staff that goes along with that. Ben also noted that the one thing he admired about his dad was the many, many friends Ray had.

Just this past Sunday evening he shared with Jan that he is happy to be going the way he is going because he can say good-bye to everyone, bringing closer to his life. In one of last conversations he shared with me that he was at peace with the process of death and while he would prefer not to die, nevertheless he was at peace.

Ray didn’t “wear his religion on his sleeve” as they say and sometimes his scientific mind kind of got in the way of faith – everything needed to make scientific sense to him – nevertheless in Matthew 6:22 it states: "Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light.” (The Message) Ray’s eyes are truly the window to his soul. He looked upon everybody as his equal. He didn’t pass judgment on anyone. He literally loved and appreciated everybody around him. Frankly, he lived out the reality of that scripture in Matthew where it states: “As you have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me.” (Matthew 25:40) He cared deeply, loved tenderly and touched them with lasting love … and his eyes were wide open with wonder and amazement at the magnificence of God’s wonderful world!

When the day does arrive for him to enter into the eternal reward of his life’s journey he will leave behind his spouse Jan, his children Ben, Grace and Claire, his son-in-laws Jeff and Stephen, and his grandchildren Harry, Tess and Hannah, as well as 6 brothers, 2 sisters, 6 sister-in-laws and 1 brother-in-law and a large number of nieces and nephews … and thousands of grateful patients. His memorial service, when held, will be at the Temple Terrace United Methodist Church, but it probably won’t be large enough to hold everyone who would wish to honor him with their presence ... to say thank you for a life well lived.

I will miss Ray and the world will be less bright when his light is extinguished ... or, as an unknown author has said, “Death is not extinguishing the light from the Christian; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”

Quote for today: Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain