This week at 5:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, we received a call from my wife's sister Nikki, with the news that Joe Rainey, their father, was possibly in the last throws of his heroic fight with cancer.

They live in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., where much of our early democracy roots were born.

If you have been there and witnessed the phone calls and the sorrow that this dreaded disease has caused, you know what I am talking about. It is a time when family and church and prayer warriors all drop what they are doing and focus on Joe and Mary and all the family members and the moments left in this life.

It is a time when all the love and the memories race through your mind as far back as you can remember as a child and you smile and cry at the same time. Joe and Mary were the people that Tom Brokaw in his best seller book entitled “The Greatest Generation” wrote about. They survived the Great Depression and then marched off to WWII and fought on foreign battle fields and literally saved the world for democracy.

Joe Rainey joined the Army Air Corp at 17 years of age with the signing permission of his parents, and climbed into the cockpit of many different bombers of WWII and flew numerous combat missions over European battlefields. Joe and his five brothers were born in Denver, Colo.

While Joe was attending Georgia Tech, my wife, Dee, was born. Joe graduated from Georgia Tech in 1952 and moved his family to Plymouth Meeting, where he is living there at home with the 24-hour hospice care for these last days of his life.

I remember Dee telling me the stories of how the family would rise each Sunday morning and Joe would take charge and march all three of his girls to the Lutheran Church there in Plymouth Meeting and also sent them to the Christian day school for their elementary years. Joe also donated his architectural professional skills in helping refurbish churches in the inner city Philadelphia area.

At times like these we turn to the scriptures and our faith to sustain us. If you have been through these times, you know exactly what the scripture talks about when it speaks of the “peace that passes all understanding.”

In our own strength we could not even begin to be able to say farewell to someone we love so much but in this “peace” that the scripture speaks of, it is another dimension of comfort and understanding of life. I have always been comforted with the idea of being in the “shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 57:1 reads: “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over past.”

America, take off your hats and pause for a moment and think of Joe and Mary Rainey and Dee and Kathy and Nikki, for a true American hero, a father, a husband, a brother is passing our way.

The Rev. Dr. Knox Herndon is pastor of His House Community Church (SBC) and a substitute school teacher in the Fayette County school system, and a former Army chaplain. The church is currently meeting in the American Legion Log Cabin across from the fountain on the Square in Fayetteville. Prayer line 770-719-2365; e-mail Khern2365@aol.com

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