Our journey, that of my sweetheart and me, is near an end. She lies in a bed in our room, softly breathing, eyes closed but still listening to the sounds around her. Death has not quite claimed her. I sit alongside, our feet touching, as her spirit struggles to break away from a ravaged body.

My sweetheart is passing from this life to the next, and we're celebrating.

Not her impending death, of course, for that is cause for great sadness and many tears from all whose lives she has so deeply touched with fountains of joy. And we, who remain earthbound, must face more tomorrows without her.

But Joel, who is afflicted with a corrosive lung cancer and is at home with hospice care, made the catch phrase "Celebrate Life" her watchwords.

And we, who will not join her just yet in heavenly attire, have been rejoicing.

Celebrating life, her life, our lives, your lives. Celebrating all of the points where our paths touch and love and God courses through us and around us with great joy. It is a living wake for my petite Welsh girl.

Frank, who first introduced Joel and me some 27 years ago when she was a pretty young lieutenant and I was a sorry lawyer, traveled in from Louisiana last week and we told stories of cowboy bars and mountain meadows and friendships forged a million years ago.

A high school friend, Karen, flew down from Sacramento Saturday night and crawled into the bed beside Joel. They wiggled their toes and giggled over high school yearbook pictures from more than 35 years ago -- a trilling of their voices reminded me of the laughter of the finches outside Joel's door.

Nurse Debbie, another of the high school chums and the one who has supplied the Education of Nurse Kent, traveled once again from Annapolis to soothe Joel's brow and offer sips of cooling water and hands of comfort and memories of double dating and wild trips to the beach.

Teresa came from Maine and she and I scoured the photo albums for pictures of my love. Two of those photographs jolted me into vivid memories of how my blood ran hot the first time I laid eyes on this brown-eyed, smiling beauty in an Air Force uniform.

Others dropped by with flowers, cards or simple greetings of love. Some sat quietly in a vigil. Others reminisced with my mother and father, who returned from their Nebraska home.

An extraordinary dozen women gathered at 2:20 Friday afternoon amid the bird feeders and flowers outside Joel's door and prayed and sang in praise of a wondrous creator and the glory of the universe and this particular one life. A visiting chaplain said she was touched by the event.

Throughout these days, we must have surely frustrated Death with our light and laughter.

Since Joel will pass before me and we will share the same resting place, she smiled when I claimed top berth. She also nodded yes to the thought that she was going to have to pass away just so I would stop nagging her to drink a little more, here eat a little more.

And we agreed that she would watch at the pearly gates for me. "Look for the big, clumsy guy with the smile on his face."

This life of Joel Christine's is not about gray and mourning black, but glorious colors of rainbows and bouquets of joy.

And so, too, is her passing.

That leaves the question: Death, where is thy sting?

Banished, I think, by the comfort of God's touch.

Kent Davy, the editor of the North County Times, is on leave to care for his wife, Joel. He may be contacted at davy@nctimes.com.