Have you ever wondered why God does not talk back when you pray or talk to Him? I’m sure I’m not the only person who has been in the desert of conversation with our Creator. Yes, the “Footprints” story is consoling and brings tears to my eyes, but for a few years now, I feel like I’ve been dropped on the sand and left there only to be taken out with the tide of despair. I can recognize His message, His words and their truth in that when I hear them said it is like food on the table, wholesome, nurturing, life-giving. I see him working through people. I can recognize people of great faith, regardless of their choice of deity, living their lives to honor their beliefs. However, due to numerous failings on my part and poor choices in my life, I have ended up in this desert of vastness, a wasteland of life that I have to find my way out of. God does reach out to me in the oddest ways, but then I can be a bit dense and self-absorbed. I don’t envy His task to bring me back to the fold.
I was drinking my coffee on the deck one morning, pot close by for refill, reading my bible and just as Solomon was building his temple to house the Ark of the Covenant, I poured another draft of coffee: Expectation, routine, caffeine deprivation, and… nothing. I unscrewed the top, assured there was more there and, nothing… not a drop. A beautiful sunny, warm and bird-song filled morning and what comes to my mind? That must be what it is like to die suddenly, unexpectedly, without warning or drama or fanfare. All the reading of theology, all the dogma of philosophy was never so riveting as that empty pot. It can happen just like that with people. We are creatures of habit moving on to the next task. My abrupt lesson at that moment was to live well, live with purpose and live what I believed – just like that! It’s ironic and a bit humorous how God uses the mundane and trivial to teach us and guide us. People who know me would know my morning caffeine is a good place to get my attention.
Less than two weeks later, I’m told that my sister who is a breast cancer survivor and was preparing for a kidney operation had cancer spreading uncontrollably throughout her body. Her brain was clear, thank God, but there was no hope. One chemotherapy session only served to confirm that. She was to come home on Hospice.
I had just been through supporting two of my dearest friends who were battling cancer on different levels in their lives. Somewhere inside a strength emerges from the deep and I go through the movements doing everything possible for my sister on any level. The physical moving of her body is not an option for me, but all her medical information, visiting, supporting, caring for and advocating, I try to do to the best of my abilities. Sitting and standing gives me great pain (more than I usually have) so what should be taxing emotionally is also grueling physically.
My mind doesn’t comprehend doing any less than what I am doing and prods me that I could do something more. Tears are a luxury and grief of any kind is tucked away in a locked box for another time. It is not the tragedy in life that makes me cry but the kindness shown to myself or others that catch at my heart and move me to tears. I have borne my share of crisis and heart wrenching sorrows, haven’t we all? The most difficult classes at Harvard could never teach me what I have learned during those brief days.
My sister had a most difficult life overburdened with crisis, tragedy, poverty, and sorrow. She was able to find joy in life through family, friends, art (which she was great at), housekeeping, and life’s little pleasures. The sorrows in her life would fill a lake yet whenever we think of her it is always of her smiling.
I never connected her imminent death to my morning lesson from the Almighty until much later. She was not ready to die – not prepared – and hoped for a miracle. Even as she was planning her funeral at my parents’ home where she stayed on Hospice, she said, “If, I should die, then…”. Where do you draw the line between faith in answered prayer and God’s plan for us (which may not be ours)? How do you help someone prepare for death when they don’t want to leave? Cancer ravages the body, depletes strength, and robs life from its victims. It does not negotiate or placate. Cancer, however, can not erase hope or faith as I saw by watching my sister pass. As she slipped away, she never acknowledged death or accepted it as far as I could see. I believe her spirit reluctantly moved on to the spiritual world with trepidation and wonder. I believe also that she was chosen to get things prepared for the rest of us to follow: to tidy up and decorate as she loved to do and after meeting everyone there who had gone ahead, await our arrival ready to greet us.
Death is so natural, predictable, and inevitable. Why then do we not wake each morning in awe that we are given another day? Dying is the natural state and end-stage of living.
Within a few weeks I witnessed my father-in-law’s “passing”… The man was a genetic miracle of good health and longevity. A 92 year old Italian who lived a life enviable of most senior citizens. He was retired and collected a fine pension longer than he worked at Remington Arms. He was always surrounded by loving family and friends and loved by all. He was famous for turning feminine heads throughout his life and the woman he was married to for 71 years was the finest lady he could ever have hoped to wed. He was blessed with wonderful health and no pain right up until he injured his back trying to move a chair (with himself in it at 245 lbs!) Hospitals do not belong treating specimens of health at that age. His brief stay in the hospital and nursing home damaged his health and when he caught a virus, he ended up in the ER with a damaged heart and organs.
He said he was ready to die, said his prayers, ate breakfast, and lunch the first day then prepared to pass which he did. “What do we do now?” he asked. His saintly wife of 71 years followed shortly ready to spend eternity in Heaven after a wonderful life filled with family and friends.
Yes, life is short. Even my father-in-law at 92 said many times, where did the time go? The rest of us, myself especially, need to treasure our days, live in the present, take care of ourselves and our loved ones and listen to God when He chooses to speak to us… or even if He doesn’t.
