Hello Beautiful souls out there,the ones who care to listen to others stories and whom open up their loving arms to many. My name is Amanda the daughter of Kenny and Ellie Brown.Ellie has just recently passed away and I am reaching out to whom ever will take the time to read and if possible lend a helping hand with her cremation so that our family can all keep a little piece of her with us. I'd also like to share something my dad shared with me I hope you all enjoy and maybe even relate. Thank you too all who can help.️ "Ellie and I had lived an off grid life for eight years prior to her stroke, wood burning stove, hand washing clothes, raised chickens for eggs and geese as watch dogs, the dessert was tough, but Ellie and I were tougher,

We made promise to each other not to let the other die in a hospital, we did not use doctors, we used nature

Midnight betrays us, 8:00 PM’s silent theft—

Ellie’s breath falters, stroke’s claws sink unseen.

Four hours I’m blind, her light dimming in our desert den,

Our home of eight years, where woodsmoke curls like prayer,

Clothes scrubbed raw by hand, chicken dust in our hair,

Geese screeching at shadows under star-stitched skies.

Ambulance wails, two hours late, ripping our vow—

No hospitals, no doctors, just nature’s pulse,

But Pima’s grit grinds my lungs, Tucson’s an hour’s flight,

A text hacks out: “Mark, your mom…” kidneys dead,

Brain bleeding, a flood betraying our desert-tough love.

I’m a ghost, feeding geese with hands cracked like dry clay,

Heart gnashing to blood, waiting for a doctor’s call—

A coyote’s howl shredding the silence’s throat.

Scans pulse with shadows, blood sour as spoiled mesquite,

She’s ornery, they say, her voice a thorned whip,

My Ellie, spitting sagebrush fire through sterile frost.

Her screams claw hospital walls, a hawk’s cry caged,

Nurses flinch, her name a brand on their ears.

Calls swarm—Adam, Amanda, Lewis, Frank, Val—

Our children, her sister, moths to a dying flame,

But I’m the keeper, throat scorched, texting ghosts,

Promising Ellie’s curses will bloom again, sharp as cactus spines.

Sleepless, I’m a husk, eyes charred like burnt creosote,

Soul flayed, bleeding in the vigil’s bone-crushing jaws.

Morning: Her glasses slip on eyes fogged like dawn mist,

Stroke’s talons rip her right hemisphere,

Left side limp, a puppet with strings slashed to dust.

Blood infection festers, reeking like rot under sand,

Antibiotics drip like sap, useless against the decay.

A tiny doctor, hoisted like a false shaman,

Carves her past with questions cold as surgical steel,

Rolled out, leaving her hand cold as river rocks in mine—

“Ice cream,” she croaks, a memory of our desert nights,

My chest caves, salt burns my tongue, eyes weep mesquite pitch.

Updates ooze like blood from a wound that won’t clot:

No drill yet, therapy nurses stagger, sweat-soaked as field hands,

MRI “normal”—a lie stinking of hospital bleach.

Her left hand grips, nails biting my palm like cholla thorns,

But my chin quakes like split stone, face floods scalding rivers,

Words choke in grief’s stranglehold, guilt a rattler’s fangs—

Four hours unseen, her light fading while I slept,

Our promise broken, hospital walls mocking our desert oath.

Val’s love, our children’s prayers, wrap like tattered burlap,

Amanda’s shoulder waits to soak my shuddering wail,

A scream too vast for my ribs, raw as wind-whipped sand.

ICU spits her out, a phone promised in the chemical haze,

Terry’s wisdom stitches my mind, frayed as old rope.

Truth’s venom sinks: Ellie’s fierce, fading,

Her spirit a dust devil clawing at flesh’s brittle cage,

Eyes dimming like embers under monsoon’s cold ash.

Goodbyes are machetes, hacking marrow, guilt crushing bone.

Up all night, Velcro shit clings, acrid as spoiled feed,

Half a box of wipes to scour two inches of her brittle skin,

Sleep a ghost, shattered by dawn’s fist, sour as alkali dust.

Portal glitches, rules twist like barbed wire in my calloused palms,

Her hand in mine, clammy, mumbling for her mom,

A smile at nothing—maybe me, maybe the desert’s cruel mirage.

Today, her fire gutters, pulse faint as a drying spring.

Ambulance bill lands, a reaper’s cold coin,

Pima to Tucson, air thick with iodine and betrayal.

She starves, lips cracked like parched earth,

Sipping water, each swallow a rasp of sandpaper,

Mind lost in a drugged fog, reeking of chemical chains,

Barring me, her humor a rusty chuckle, sharp as flint.

“I miss her,” I choke, voice gravel over sun-baked stone,

Angels—Carol, Val—brush close, wings damp with my tears.

Eyes hemorrhage salt, gratitude burns like creosote smoke.

Love carries my Ellie, my desert’s heart, to the edge,

Our children’s names—Mark, Adam, Amanda, Lewis, Frank—

A chant woven in her fading breath,

Her hand slips, each thread of our vow snapping,

Torn to bloody ribbons in the wind’s howl,

Reeking of her end, my guilt, our love’s raw ruin.Ellie and had lived an off grid life for eight years prior to her stroke, wood burning stove, hand washing clothes, raised chickens for eggs and geese as watch dogs, the dessert was tough, but Ellie and I were tougher,

We made promise to each other not to let the other die in a hospital, we did not use doctors, we used nature

Midnight betrays us, 8:00 PM’s silent theft—

Ellie’s breath falters, stroke’s claws sink unseen.

Four hours I’m blind, her light dimming in our desert den,

Our home of eight years, where woodsmoke curls like prayer,

Clothes scrubbed raw by hand, chicken dust in our hair,

Geese screeching at shadows under star-stitched skies.

Ambulance wails, two hours late, ripping our vow—

No hospitals, no doctors, just nature’s pulse,

But Pima’s grit grinds my lungs, Tucson’s an hour’s flight,

A text hacks out: “Mark, your mom…” kidneys dead,

Brain bleeding, a flood betraying our desert-tough love.

I’m a ghost, feeding geese with hands cracked like dry clay,

Heart gnashing to blood, waiting for a doctor’s call—

A coyote’s howl shredding the silence’s throat.

Scans pulse with shadows, blood sour as spoiled mesquite,

She’s ornery, they say, her voice a thorned whip,

My Ellie, spitting sagebrush fire through sterile frost.

Her screams claw hospital walls, a hawk’s cry caged,

Nurses flinch, her name a brand on their ears.

Calls swarm—Adam, Amanda, Lewis, Frank, Val—

Our children, her sister, moths to a dying flame,

But I’m the keeper, throat scorched, texting ghosts,

Promising Ellie’s curses will bloom again, sharp as cactus spines.

Sleepless, I’m a husk, eyes charred like burnt creosote,

Soul flayed, bleeding in the vigil’s bone-crushing jaws.

Morning: Her glasses slip on eyes fogged like dawn mist,

Stroke’s talons rip her right hemisphere,

Left side limp, a puppet with strings slashed to dust.

Blood infection festers, reeking like rot under sand,

Antibiotics drip like sap, useless against the decay.

A tiny doctor, hoisted like a false shaman,

Carves her past with questions cold as surgical steel,

Rolled out, leaving her hand cold as river rocks in mine—

“Ice cream,” she croaks, a memory of our desert nights,

My chest caves, salt burns my tongue, eyes weep mesquite pitch.

Updates ooze like blood from a wound that won’t clot:

No drill yet, therapy nurses stagger, sweat-soaked as field hands,

MRI “normal”—a lie stinking of hospital bleach.

Her left hand grips, nails biting my palm like cholla thorns,

But my chin quakes like split stone, face floods scalding rivers,

Words choke in grief’s stranglehold, guilt a rattler’s fangs—

Four hours unseen, her light fading while I slept,

Our promise broken, hospital walls mocking our desert oath.

Val’s love, our children’s prayers, wrap like tattered burlap,

Amanda’s shoulder waits to soak my shuddering wail,

A scream too vast for my ribs, raw as wind-whipped sand.

ICU spits her out, a phone promised in the chemical haze,

Terry’s wisdom stitches my mind, frayed as old rope.

Truth’s venom sinks: Ellie’s fierce, fading,

Her spirit a dust devil clawing at flesh’s brittle cage,

Eyes dimming like embers under monsoon’s cold ash.

Goodbyes are machetes, hacking marrow, guilt crushing bone.

Up all night, Velcro shit clings, acrid as spoiled feed,

Half a box of wipes to scour two inches of her brittle skin,

Sleep a ghost, shattered by dawn’s fist, sour as alkali dust.

Portal glitches, rules twist like barbed wire in my calloused palms,

Her hand in mine, clammy, mumbling for her mom,

A smile at nothing—maybe me, maybe the desert’s cruel mirage.

Today, her fire gutters, pulse faint as a drying spring.

Ambulance bill lands, a reaper’s cold coin,

Pima to Tucson, air thick with iodine and betrayal.

She starves, lips cracked like parched earth,

Sipping water, each swallow a rasp of sandpaper,

Mind lost in a drugged fog, reeking of chemical chains,

Barring me, her humor a rusty chuckle, sharp as flint.

“I miss her,” I choke, voice gravel over sun-baked stone,

Angels—Carol, Val—brush close, wings damp with my tears.

Eyes hemorrhage salt, gratitude burns like creosote smoke.

Love carries my Ellie, my desert’s heart, to the edge,

Our children’s names—Mark,kelly,Adam, Amanda, Lewis, Frank—

A chant woven in her fading breath,

Her hand slips, each thread of our vow snapping,

Torn to bloody ribbons in the wind’s howl,

Reeking of her end, my guilt, our love’s raw ruin.