Brother Mudge was a middle-aged friend of mine who was dying of cancer.

The first time I heard about him was during Priest’s Quorum meeting when my Young Men’s Leader announced that a new family had moved into the ward and the Bishop needed us to bring them the sacrament. My quorum had already been doing this for several other homebound widows and between the three of us, I was the only one with a license, so did it every week. Sometimes I just wanted to go home and nap like the other members of my quorum could, but because taking and blessing the sacrament was one of my duties I didn’t complain.

When I knocked on the door of the Mudge’s apartment building that day, their 14 year-old son, Joe, answered and welcomed us in. We introduced ourselves to him, and after taking our church shoes off, introduced ourselves again to Sister Mudge. She gave us a sturdy hand shake and thanked us for coming. Then she proceeded to show us into Brother Mudge’s room.

The walls of his dim room were fenced with tall plastic storage drawers filled with medicine, blankets and a thousand other things. Everything was clean and the room had that doctor’s office smell to it. In the center of the room, in a half reclined hospital bed, sat Brother Mudge. His shirt was off and he was so unnaturally skinny, that he looked like a shaggy dog with its hair shaved off. Our Young Men’s leader had told us that Brother Mudge had terminal cancer, but seeing his condition shocked us. A cringing feeling developed in my stomach and everything in the room now repelled me; things were no longer clean and pleasant.

He saw my hesitation, and before I could open my mouth he gave a hearty, “Hello,” and “I appreciate this boys.” 

Going to his bedside I gently shook his woody hand and replied, “Hi Brother Mudge, I’m David.”

A grin crossed his face and he commented back, “David huh? That’s a good name I guess.”

We blessed the bread and water, and after Joe, Sister Mudge and Brother Mudge had partook of it, Brother Mudge thanked us and immediately struck up a conversation.

“So you boys into scouts at all?”