THE BOND BETWEEN US

God with Us

Carry On

Living a full life is a blessing denied to many beyond our understanding, but it also comes with the determination to carry on in the brief time we have to live apart.  We lose parents, grandparents,  aunts and uncles, close friends, soulmates, children, etc.  However, we can embrace peace, faith and hope in the understanding that we are an eternal soul with a mortal body.  The bond between us is merely paused for a season.

I’ve found the following observation to be useful:

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to.”

--Elisabeth Cabler-Ross 

 

INNOCENCE, DEATH AND DYING

Patches, Emporia, KS

MEMORIAL DAY 2021, MONDAY, MAY 31

This is not a fanciful or inviting subject matter for discussion in a youth-oriented culture, but one that needs to see the light of day on occasion.  And on the occasion of the hopeful decline of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s appropriate to reflect on lessons learned from any milestone event in our lives.  Vaccinations in America are beginning to control the viral spread here, but other areas of the world that are not so fortunate like India are experiencing record infections and deaths.  The gift of life is fragile and we should be appreciative on every waking day.  Over three million deaths worldwide have now been recorded.

Death comes calling quickly for some of these unfortunate people and has a long and anguished protraction for others.  I recently reflected that my father and grandfather Davis died within seven months of each other and my mother and wife also died within seven months.  My grandfather and mother had immediate heart failure while my father and wife had longer challenges with cancer.

I wrote a blog ten years ago about my loss of innocence when I was a child and experienced the death of our family dog, Patches, after he was hit by a passing car.  That was my first personal understanding of the reality that our mortal life has both a beginning and an ending.  That concept is quite sobering.  Later in life, one of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to take two of our family dogs to the vet to end their lives, since they both had terminal issues.  I did find solace in the swift and gentle process.  In the past few months, friends and family have had to do the same.  The passage of time can’t ever erase the precious memory of any sentient being in this life that has deeply touched our hearts or minimize their eternal influence which has been indelibly inscribed on our soul.  In his passing, Patches had assisted in the preparation for the life ahead of me.   

When my daughter and son-in-law drove to pick up my four-year old grandson from school, they had to gently tell him that they were sad because their family dog of ten years had died at the vets.  His innocent reply was “I’m not sad, she was sick.”  Later after more discussion, he came to the realization of a mortal life’s ending.  When quality of life and suffering has occurred, we can do the humane thing and end life with compassion for our animals.  The majority of our culture still values human life so that we issue pain meds until there is a natural ending. 

Our family pets wake up every morning only taking life as it’s presented.  They don’t have the gift and sometimes the curse of a frontal lobe that enables us human beings to know that life has an end game.  But that final evolution of our brain also enables us to prepare for it.    We know going in that we will probably outlive our animal companions.  Our comfort is knowing we had a good life together while they were here.  A Day Lily thrives only one day, but that is time enough for them. 

My sister Carolyn sent a yellowing Ann Landers column which concluded, “And, my friend, when I am very old and I no longer enjoy good health, hearing and sight, do not make heroic efforts to keep me going.  I am not having any fun.  Please see to it that my life is taken gently.  I shall leave this earth knowing with the last breath I draw that my fate was always safest in your hands.”

RIP Rosemary, Jenny-Wren, Lucy, Sonny, Mason and Daisy   

 

 

LENTEN HOPE

LENTEN SEASON, JUMC, Jamestown, NC

The worst thing is never the last thing

As I was preparing to drive to our weekly mission for elementary students where I volunteer each Monday afternoon, I was wondering if my time and efforts were making any difference at all.  We had been having informal conversations about how to keep the kids settled down so that we could actually make a difference in their lives by mentoring and sending them home with a hot dinner.  Maybe our presence meant nothing at all.

Our leader started the free after school program with a singing rehearsal to prepare the students for a short program this Lenten Sunday at our church.  I sat at an empty table across from them and watched them sing.  Then a small third grade girl slipped up beside me and softly asked if she could talk to someone.  I noticed that she seemed distressed as her head was bowed.  I looked down and said “Of course, what’s the matter”, not really expecting anything too troubling.  She put her small arms around me and whispered something so soft with the singing in the background that I couldn’t understand her.  I leaned down to make eye contact with her teared-up eyes and saw the grieving tears slowly trail down her cheeks.  She ever so slightly raised her voice and said, “My grandmother died yesterday.”

I was totally caught off guard and could only reply “Oh, I’m so sorry.”  We just stood there as the other children continued their rehearsal and hugged for a minute.  Two other helpers comforted the girl and then I directed her over to an empty table and let her pour out her pent-up emotions before I spoke again.  It occurred to me that she may have just come to the realization that she would never see her grandmother again and that they must have had a very loving relationship.

I mentioned to the little girl that both of my grandmothers had died, but I knew they were safe and happy in God’s heaven.  And I was certain that they were OK and even sometimes watching over me too.  That finally seemed to provide some hope and reassurance that everything would eventually get better.  When the singing was finished and an activity time had begun, two of the other children asked what was wrong and to their credit, immediately invited the little girl to join them.  Soon she was smiling again.

Defeating death on that Black Friday afternoon over two thousand years ago and rising from the empty tomb is the great hope for all mankind.  That eternal truth once more revealed itself to me through the tearful eyes of a young child this Lenten season.  And I knew that I had made a difference today.  

CHECKING OUT

                                 Early Spring Sunrise, Jamestown, NC

An article in USA TODAY caught my attention recently about a hospice doctor that was facing end-stage pancreatic cancer himself.  Both he and his wife had some very insightful thoughts and readily admitted that the experience had become surreal for them.  That was also how I felt when my wife was going through end-stage breast cancer.  And I really identified with how this couple was handling themselves with grace, gratitude and thanks living.

The doctor had previously written that “Life is to be embraced.  Yet death, whenever it comes to each of us, is as natural as the rising of the sun.  We spend so much money and emotional turmoil staving off death, even for minutes or hours, beyond all hope, often beyond reason.”  Our youth-oriented society tends to err on the side of total denial that mortal life is finite.  He noted that medical intervention has a role to play in improving those final days, but as we too learned, there are limits to the adverse misery in those precious final days VS the benefits of some procedures.

The couple counsels that an advance directive needs to be in place so your doctors and family don’t have to guess or argue about your wishes.  Then you can mourn together, share the loss together, not worry about decisions, and also be grateful together for your presence in each other’s life.  That enables everyone including the caretaker and the patient to continue to live and enables one to check out gracefully with the hope and full knowledge that death is merely a transition from time to eternity spent with our loved ones and our Creator.

I’m grateful to understand that once we come to terms with this reality, the life we’ve been given can truly be lived to the fullest without fear of death in honor of those who have gracefully made the transition.

FORTY YEARS TOGETHER

Larry and Karen Wedding, 1968, Olathe, KS

APRIL 20, 1968-APRIL 20, 2008

My wife Karen and I celebrated our forty-year anniversary three months before breast cancer took her life as I held her hand.  So, it was no small coincidence that when I casually heard the lyrics to a new release of a Jason Isbell track on my Google home device that my head snapped around and it had my full attention.  The title of the song is If We Were Vampires which on first blush makes no sense whatsoever.  But I downloaded the track from The Nashville Sound and began to understand the lyrics.  The songwriter has known life, and the common destiny we all share, and this song needs to be shared by every couple on the planet.  Once I comprehended the lyrics, I understood the title:

"If we were vampires and death was a joke,

I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand…

Maybe time running out is a gift.

I'll give every second I can find."

I’ve had previous conversations with friends and couples about the elephant in the room when they come to realize later in life that barring a tragic accident, one of the two of them will some day be left to carry on without the other.  That realization can take the sting out of any petty offense or argument that is presently irritating them.  Neither should ever go to bed angry.  Of course, we’ve been given life to live to the fullest and we should do just that.  And if the time comes when one is left to spend some time alone, we should honor that bond and carry on, knowing that this life is only a finite segment of our existence and death is simply a transition from time to eternity.  And that spiritual existence is one spent in the presence of our creator with our loved ones in that beautiful forever.  Our time apart is relatively short in that context and it's only paused for a season.  Ironically, the refrain of the song says it all:

"It's knowing that this can't go on forever.

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.

Maybe we'll get 40 years together.

One day I'll be gone,

One day you'll be gone."

LAST FLIGHT HAIKU

                                          Beached, Kiawah Island, SC
An anomaly,
walking the beach at sunrise,
colors in the sun.

A lifeless shadow,
washed up by retreating tides,
covered in time's sand.

The butterfly's life,
is one of resurrection,
and spiritual flight.

Reaching the shoreline,
at long last the journey's end,
hearing "Job well done".

DOOR KNOBS & DEATH

Door Knob, London, England

I was spending my first night in ICU after a serious heart attack when a senior nurse walked into my room during the "graveyard shift". We entered into a short conversation as she checked my vital signs. After just a few minutes, she looked up and said, "You're a Christian, aren't you"? I incredulously said "Yes" and remarked that since we had just met, I didn't believe I had told her that. She then volunteered that she too was a Christian and held the hope of an eternal spiritual life after this temporary mortal one. After spending many years in ICU on the "graveyard shift" which she preferred, the calmness of spirit or the shear fright of death was very apparent to her in her patients.

We don’t need to dwell on death, as our creator gave us life to live to the fullest. Yet, we shouldn’t be blind to the elephant in the room either and we need to contemplate our common destiny more often than we probably do spend thinking about it. I received the following short explanation of death recently which prompted me to recall my brief conversation with the senior nurse above:

A sick man turned to his doctor as he was preparing to
leave the examination room and said, “Doctor, I’m afraid to die.
Tell me what lies on the other side.”

Very quietly, the doctor said, “I don't know.”

“You don't know?
You're, a Christian man, and don't know what's on the other side?”

The doctor was holding the handle of the door.
On the other side came a sound of scratching and whining,
And as he opened the door, a dog sprang into the room and eagerly leaped up to him.
Turning to the patient, the doctor said, “Did you notice my dog?
He's never been in this room before.
He didn't know what was inside. He knew nothing except that his master was here.
And when the door opened, he sprang in without fear.
I know little of what is on the other side of death.
But I do know one thing... I know my Master is there and that is enough.”
--Anonymous

I remember reading years ago about a famous painting illustrating a prominent closed door with Jesus standing outside knocking. The subtle focal point of the painting was that the door did not have a door knob on the outside—we’ve all been created with the free will to invite him into our hearts. But it’s becoming a bit late when we’re lying behind a door in ICU, as that door may never be opened.