Posts Tagged ‘dying’
Life in a Matter of Sentences
Posted by: the susie solution on: March 23, 2015
- In: Christianity | death | grieving
- Leave a Comment
This post is really for those who know me, or know my family, or knew my mom. Here I have posted the memorial service bulletin, the audio of the memorial service, and the slideshow of Mama’s life. It’s not that I object to anyone else seeing these things – but it’s not likely to mean much. It absolutely is NOT allowed to share this post or its contents in any way, shape, or form without my express consent. Please respect our family’s privacy!!
One of the hardest things in getting ready for my mom’s memorial service last December was putting together her bio for the memorial service bulletin, and then choosing the photos for and writing the narrative for the slide show. How do you reduce 84 years of life to a mere one page of print – even single spaced, small font? Or to a 15 minute slide show of a hundred pictures narrated by a few hundred words? There was so much that I wanted the world to be able to see of my mom, of the very uncommon life she had lived, of just how different her choices had been from what they could so easily HAVE been, given her childhood. Even we kids only knew such a small portion of my mom’s life. We just didn’t realize how small until she was gone. (I do have a very small number of service programs left, so if you knew Mama and would like one, let me know; first come, first served.) If you intend to listen to the service, I suggest you look at the program first to keep the players straight.
Below is the memorial service. IF YOU ARE USING INTERNET EXPLORER, you may not be able to play the .wav file, but it works fine on most other browsers. (OR contact me and I will see if I can send it to you as a file.) Corey is the first brother you hear. As Cherry explains, Brooke was unable to attend the service because both of their girls were sick, so Cherry simply led the congregation in singing “Until Then”, while Alyssa signed it. I wish there was a video of it, so you could SEE Alyssa; it was beautiful, and Mama would have loved it so. (Alyssa is a professional interpreter, and Mama was very proud of her for it.) Mama always hated the line “And things of earth that caused the heart to tremble, remembered there will only bring a smile.” She felt, as do I, that that is unscriptural; when we get to Heaven, we will be so caught up in the joy of being with Jesus that we won’t even REMEMBER the things of earth. So she had had me write a replacement verse: “And pain and anguish here that make us tremble, will be forgotten there in Jesus’ smile.” Because of a miscommunication in the last-minute shuffle, though, the version displayed to the congregation to sing was a traditional one rather than the altered one I had sent to the girls to prepare. Alyssa, though, signed it (and I sang it) as Mama had wanted it, so her wishes were at least partly honored. Tim leads off the duet of reading with Gary. The audio includes the narration of the slide show, the actual show of which is included below, so you can skip from 9:42 to 23:30 on the timer.
The slide show, being put together in quite a bit more haste than I had hoped would be the case, with not nearly as much time for editing and proofing as it should have had, has photos left out that should have been in and photos that are redundant. There were also a number of photos I WANTED to have, but was unable to find – probably because Mama had spent the year giving away most of her photos of her grands. We had been very careful to take “last visit pictures” with all the relatives who came to see her but when we went to put the show together, we discovered that a great number of them were nowhere to be found on Rob’s camera, either of our home computers nor even the back up harddrive. They were just….. gone – and there was no time to contact folks to see if they had any other copies to contribute. I ended up having to hunt up other pics from our own albums or facebook. It hurt dreadfully that so many of the pictures of Mama’s kids and grandkids at the end of the video aren’t of her WITH them, but just of …. them … someplace. (I bawled about it for an hour, to be honest.) But there is at least one picture of every person in this family that Mama loved so much.
I’d intended to record the audio narration, with Mama’s favorite hymns to fill in the gaps, but since the slide show itself wasn’t finished until into the wee hours of the morning of the service, there was no way to accomplish that. I’d just have to do it live. I managed to make it through by doing it from the back of the church, so I wasn’t looking at anyone, just the screen, my script, and the microphone. (My drama training does occasionally come in useful!) Doing it “on the fly”, though, did lead to some gaffes, the funniest of which came when I switched horses mid-stream, intending to put something more smoothly and making it worse, instead. The subject of my brother, Tim’s, first marriage is a terribly painful one to the family, but since out of that marriage came my parents’ first three dearly loved grandchildren, Stacy, Josh and Holly, the fact of the marriage’s existence was given the same acknowledgment in Mama’s history as those of her other kids, although I didn’t name his wife. In the later part of the narrative, I deal with the event of Tim’s second marriage. What I originally wrote was, “Some years after Tim’s first wife left him…”, but during the service, as I was approaching that point, it occurred to me that it would be kinder to put it in a more neutral term, so I decided to change it to, “Some years after Tim’s first marriage ended….” What came out was a most unfortunate mix. “Some years after Tim’s first wife ended….” (Honestly, that was NOT what I meant. Even subconsciously. At least, I don’t think so. Just in case you are wondering, the woman is quite alive and has not, to my knowledge of the moment, ended.)
The slide show has been through a couple of different processes by now to get it into this format, so the photos are not as crisp as the originals, and if you full-screen the show, the photos and titles get a little fuzzier. It is beyond my technical skills to do anything about it, and I don’t want to wait another 5 months to try to figure something else out so I can get this thing done! It is what it is.
Last summer, someone sent Mama the lyrics to a modern hymn, new to her, but that I have known for some years now. I showed her this youtube of it so she could hear the melody and the voice of the original singer. She loved it, and felt it so achingly clearly expressed her feelings of what she was going through – and had yet to face at that point. As this post draws to a close, I’d like to share it with you all as well. It is titled “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer”, by Keith and Kristyn Getty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuVeSJTC-Q “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer”
So, there you have it. 84 years reduced to a matter of minutes. SO much left out. But it is my hope that what is included will fan the warm memories of those who knew her and maybe bring back memories long-forgotten to be treasured once again.
None of us become fully the men and women we wish we could be; Mama was keenly aware of her failings. But she was also aware of, and frequently overwhelmed by, the fact that by God’s enabling, we can all be and do much better than there might be any reason to expect, and that God’s grace is more than sufficient to make up for all the ways we fall so short. The testing of Mama’s heart is now ended – and indeed, in His likeness she DID wake!
To God be the glory – GREAT things He has done!
- In: Christianity | death | dying | suffering
- 1 Comment
It was an interesting juxtaposition of events last October that as my mother was on the final stretch of her torturous journey to Home Plate, Brittany Maynard was preparing to execute her well-publicized plan to kill herself on November 1st.
Mama and Maynard both had brain tumors. (Mama’s cancer started in her lung, but metastasized to her brain, and it was the brain tumor that had the most impact in her last months.) The kind of end Mama went through was precisely what Maynard wanted to avoid. Since the cancer was going to kill her, Maynard saw killing herself first as a way to beat it to the punch, ending life on HER terms. Maynard was lauded by many as a hero, a courageous spokesperson for the “right” to choose the time, place and manner of one’s own death. It is odd that many of those debating seem to think this is a new idea.
The practice of killing oneself – or, rather, the cultural acceptance or prohibition of it – is ancient, although the reasons for it have varied greatly. In many indigenous cultures, for example, it is common for the elderly to deliberately leave the village and wander off to die on their own, thus decreasing the drain on communal resources and increasing the odds for survival of the living. In Hindu India for centuries, the practice of suttee – a living wife being immolated along with her deceased husband – was a cultural norm. Although it was not uncommonly carried out with the aid of sedating drugs or brute force on the unwilling or fearful, many a wife went quite willingly, sometimes out of such love for her husband that she did not wish to live without him, perhaps more often because she knew that the life of a widow was a sheer misery, since it was disgraceful that she should live while her lord and master did not. She would be forced to live out the rest of her life as a drudge to either her husband’s family or her father’s house. In Roman times, some enemies of Caesar were given an order of forced suicide to “open their veins” or to drink hemlock as a more dignified option than the humiliation of public arrest and execution, but other enemies who learned of plans for such orders, or for orders to arrest and execute them, chose to kill themselves before the orders could be given, so as to deprive Caesar the pleasure of triumph. In Japan, committing seppuku, or hari-kiri, was (and even for many in modern times, IS) considered the only honorable way to recover honor after dishonor. In modern Western civilization, the justification for killing oneself is about the “right” to control the time, place, and manner of one’s own exit from this life. The goal is to ensure that one experiences a “good death.”
That sounds appealing, doesn’t it – “a good death”? A death that is peaceful. A death free from pain or suffering. A death that happens in a place of our choosing, where we are happy and comfortable, surrounded by the people or things that we love. A death that comes while we are in possession of our faculties and before the indignities and frailties of physical decline. Given our druthers, even if we don’t believe it’s right to force the issue as Maynard did, who wouldn’t prefer the “good death” option over Door #2? I would. I know Mama did. Those of us who loved her certainly hoped for that “good death” for her.
She didn’t get it. Her last hours were as difficult as the months preceding it had been. Her pain had proved extremely difficult to manage; she couldn’t take the usual go-to meds, and it took a lot of experimenting with others to find a good combination that worked – and then her pain would change and we’d start fruit-basket-turnover again. She was in pain at the end. She spent her last months in what is known as “paranoid delirium.” One time she passed notes to her hospice nurse about calling the FBI to rescue her because she was in danger – Patti (my sister-in-love) and I were apparently anti-government agents out to harm her. There were repeated issues with getting her to take her meds, either her being convinced that her taking them would cause hundreds of other people to die, or that taking them was what was making her sick (rather than having cancer), or alternately that they were part of a conspiracy to keep her alive when she just wanted to die and go be with the Lord! She was able to be in her own home, as she had always wanted, but once the paranoia started, she felt “trapped.” She died at home, but she was totally unaware of her surroundings. Patti and I were with her in her last hours, but I honestly have no idea if she truly knew who we were or even that we were there (consciously.) Mama’s last hour and actual death itself were horrible, traumatic for both Patti and me to watch. We sang no hymns. Our only prayers were gut-wrenching cries of, “Oh, God, please take her Home and let this be over!!!” Mama experienced no visions of angels or loved ones already passed on, no glimpses of Glory. Her last words, between great gasping gulps for air, were, “I had no idea it could be so hard!” When she had gone, there was no look of peace and calm on her face. No, it was not a “good death.”
The world looks at a death like Mama’s and sees it as an evil. As far as the world is concerned, suffering is only “good” if it is for some kind of greater purpose that we understand and agree with and will achieve something for us when we’re done. That’s why it makes perfect sense, from a worldly point of view, to do as Maynard did. Going through the suffering and pain of cancer was for no understandable purpose; she certainly didn’t agree to take it on; and it would achieve nothing for her but death, which she could obtain on her own without going through the suffering. People of Maynard’s convictions look at what my mother experienced and see a textbook example for exactly why they believe in what Maynard did.
But they’ve got it wrong. The world sees only the outside and existence this side of the grave, while God is concerned with the inner man, and what lies beyond death. Everything we undergo has the purpose of conforming us to the likeness of His Son and preparing us for Heaven. Everything. God doesn’t put His children through suffering for kicks and giggles, nor does He take our suffering lightly. It is nothing against us that we would prefer not to suffer; Jesus Himself dreaded the suffering He was to undergo, and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.” If we are to be like Him, however, we must then also say as He said, “But, hey, it’s what YOU want that matters.” Hebrews 5:8 tells us that Jesus, though He was a son, learned obedience through suffering. Now, since He never sinned, we know that this isn’t referencing obedience as opposed to being disobedient. Since we are being conformed to His image, so, too, there must be ways in which there is obedience we are learning by our suffering that has nothing to do with sin. II Corinthians 4:16-18 says “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” No matter what was going on with Mama on the outside that we could see as she wasted away, we can trust with perfect confidence that her inner self WAS being renewed day by day. No matter how horrible and drawn-out the process seemed here on earth, in the light of eternity, it was but the blink of an eye. Any pain she endured here was the last pain she will ever experience for all the rest of eternity – and even the memory of it was wiped away as she entered her Father’s house!
For those without the Lord, well… I guess they may as well hope for that “good death”, because it will be the last pleasure they will ever know. If they remember its existence on the other side, it can but add to their torment to know that it is eternally lost to them.
For the believer, there is no such thing as a “bad” death; for us, all deaths lead but to Paradise. For the unbeliever, a “good death” is just a nicer entrance to Hell.
The Gathering
Posted by: the susie solution on: March 2, 2014
“The evening wore on…. That’s a very nice expression, isn’t it? With your permission, I’ll say it again… The evening wore on.”
Harvey fans will recognize the line. Language fans will recognize the pleasure of a phrase that manages to capture a world of nuance in a very few words.
One of the blessings I am thankful for in my heritage is that I come from a family of word lovers. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Gunny (a.k.a. GG) immigrated to this country from Sweden when she was four. Because her mother did not allow her to play with neighborhood children (afraid they would make fun of her for being foreign), GG learned her English in school, which resulted in her using a very proper variety of the language rather than the colloquial version she would otherwise have absorbed. Being an avid reader, she acquired an impressive vocabulary. Until dementia closed her mental dictionary, I never knew GG at a loss for just the precise word to use, no matter how obscure. She was a crossword puzzle and word jumble fan, as are my mom, several of my siblings and I. Although GG wasn’t a game player, the generations since are very fond of Scrabble and other word-based games. My grandfather was also a voracious reader, and that love of reading cascades down the generational lines all the way to my own grands. No matter which family members were present, conversations around our table were lively affairs, and puns were ALWAYS on the menu!
It is to GG that I attribute my own passion for the nuances of words, and my delight in the intricacies of the construction of language. She wasn’t a writer, but I couldn’t write as I do without the influence she had on developing my appreciation for words as both tools and toys.
Solomon wrote a proverb I like to apply to those of us who love language. “Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word fitly spoken.” Using just the right word carries an immense satisfaction. Think of just the ways to indicate the act of moving one’s legs to travel from one place to another. One can walk, of course. How pedestrian. (Like I said, puns are always on the menu.) But there’s no need to merely “walk” when you can saunter, skip, mosey, sidle, strut, slink, march, sashay, float, or trudge! The whole tone of a story can depend on just that simple choice of words. For example, think of the opening line of so many well-known jokes: “A man walks into a bar….” Now substitute one of the words I gave above for “walks”. Each of them gives an entirely different feel to the set-up, doesn’t it? (And I don’t know about you, but I have a verrry hard time using “sashay” or “skip” referring to a guy. One more nuance!)
Sometimes, which word you use in a situation depends on your perspective. The quote at the beginning of this post obviously came from someone who enjoyed the event. If it was an evening spent at a fashion show, most guys would probably describe it as “The evening dragged on. For-e-ver.” When my husband spent 5 years in Japan, one difference he had to get used to in language perspective concerned one person being called to approach another. In English, we call and say, “Come here” and the response is, “I’m coming.” The referent point is where the CALLER is, and that the responder is coming TO him. In Japanese, the caller also says, “Come here”, but the response is, “I’m going” – the referent point being where the RESPONDER is and the fact that he is leaving FROM where he is at now.
Since my mother was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, the words “death” and “dying” have understandably become rather a more common part of our vocabulary. For most of us – even believers – our thoughts of death tend to focus on it as leaving – leaving the world of the familiar, leaving family. But there is a phrase that is used a number of times in the Old Testament that I have long loved because it turns that reference point around.
First used in Genesis 25:8, it says of Abraham that he “… breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” And was gathered to his people.
Remember how Jesus said, weeping over Jerusalem, “How often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks…” If you’ve ever seen a hen gathering her chicks, you know the tender, fiercely protective action it is. She doesn’t just hold her wings out and say, “Here, chick, chick.” No, she actively pursues and gathers them in. Only a chick that flatly refuses to come under her protective wings will be left to fend for itself. We who die in the Lord may not have another human being around when we die, but we will never be alone when we die. God doesn’t just open The Door for us to walk through as He waits for us on the Other Side. Even as we breathe our last breath, He is there to gather us in. We don’t have to do a thing.
My mother is an old woman, old and full of years. Like Abraham, she will leave behind family members who are still living. But, like Abraham, “her people” – OUR people – the true gathering of God’s family – isn’t here on earth, anyway.
Our referent point is here; God’s referent point is eternity. We feel we’re being left behind; God knows that, in Him, we are never apart. We see dying as leaving our family; God knows it to be joining the Family.
At the end of our days, whether our life wore on, or dragged on, or something in between, for all the uncertainties and mysteries that lie in just what Death is, it is a comfort to know one thing for certain: at the end of it all, we’ll be gathered Home.
A Chrsitmas to Remember
Posted by: the susie solution on: January 5, 2014
The manner of my parents’ dying is a study in contrasts. My dad died of an instant, massive heart attack, totally unexpected and unheralded. He was gone in the blink of an eye. Losing him that way had its blessings. Alzheimers claimed his older brother, and is now claiming his younger; it is highly likely that Daddy, had he lived longer, would also have had it. There was no lingering and suffering. Though the grief was sharp – heart- and mind-numbing- the worst of it was packed into those first few months. Losing him like that also had its own difficulties. I regretted that there was no chance to ask all the questions about his past that I had been only lately wondering about, such as his experiences flying medevac flights in the Philippines during WWII. The hardest thing for me to deal with was that we didn’t get to say goodbye. We didn’t know the “lasts” were, in fact, the lasts. We didn’t know we had spent our last Christmas, last Thanksgiving, last visits. There were no special last memories made.
With my mother dying as she is, we WILL have to watch her suffer. It won’t be for a period of years, as we went through with my dh’s parents, but it will be more than long enough! (Google “dying from lung cancer” and you can find descriptions of what she faces.) By the time she dies, we will long to see her free from the ravages of this disease. Our grief has already begun, coming in fits and starts, and I expect we will have done most of our grieving by the time she is finally released.
But it is a blessing is that we have the chance to ask the questions. We have the opportunity to treasure the “lasts” that we are given. We have opportunities to make special memories that will last us all our lives, to savor moments so that we may fix them in our minds.
So let me tell you of our Christmas to Remember.
From the Friday before Christmas till the morning of New Year’s Day, I had from at least 4 to as many as 15 extra people here every day. All five of our children were here, two with a spouse and 2 granddaughters each. (The first Christmas with all the adult kids for about 3 years, and all 5 together only twice for a few hours in the intervening years.) Also here were my oldest brother, wife, and 2 grown sons, who I only see every few years. The day after Christmas, our oldest son and his family left to visit HER folks, and my youngest older brother, wife, daughter, and their foster baby took their places at the table. (All of which is why I’m not writing about any of this until now!) My kids would have been here, anyway, but my brothers came as a special visit to see Mama.
Mama is no longer able to attend church services. (She had no idea that the Sunday before Thanksgiving would be her last!) So we decided to do a candlelight Christmas Eve service at her house, early enough in the evening for those with little ones to participate. In the dark and hush, the 4 and 2 yo great-granddaughters played well with the Granma’s house toys that the two girls who live here know well. The 7 mo spent the first half-hour or so sitting quietly in Granma’s lap, exceptional for a wiggle worm like Fiona. After a prayer, we began our first carol. As we started on the second verse, I nearly broke down. All my life I have associated Mama and music. She loves to sing, and there are several hymns that always make me think of her because she used to sing them as she did housework. As we were singing that carol, I was suddenly struck by the fact that her voice was missing. The breathing required for singing is too much for her now. I realized I will never hear my mother’s lovely voice lifted in song again.
By the end of the second verse, I had recovered and was able to sing again. Various ones of us chose carols to sing. When our kids were young at home, we sang carols – ALL the verses – throughout the Advent season, so although some were a bit rusty, we made it through all of them. In between songs, we read the story from Luke. I had Bethy read Granma’s favorite reading, a piece written as from Mary to the apostle John, talking about not just Jesus’ birth, but His whole life, through His death and resurrection. Several others shared special things they had been thinking about. Most touching of all was our son, Darien. (This is the one whose teen years we refer to as the Hell Years. Now nearing 25, we are closer than ever, and we have seen amazing growth in his relationship with the Lord.) He has been listening to one of his favorite punk Christian bands and their cover of the old, old hymn, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, and some lines in it had hit him in a profound way. He read them to us. “Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood. How His kindness yet pursues me! Mortal tongue can never tell. Clothed in flesh till death shall loose me, I cannot proclaim it well.” He was crying as he read it, and afterwards spoke of the personal meaning of those lines, and his growing awareness that we will never be able to fully express the wonder of God’s grace until we reach heaven. Of all my children, to hear THIS son speak so! What a blessing! The evening continued with song as we asked Mama for suggestions, and we finally ended with prayer. It was one of the most profound, most moving, most holy times I can ever remember with my family. What a memory to carry with us!!
During the week, each of my kids who live far away spent special one-on-one time with their Granma, and my brothers and their wives spent many hours over all the days of their visits sitting and talking with her. We got some great pictures. My brother’s family, Cherry and I also did a Sunday morning service and hymn-sing, another special time together. My mom’s voice couldn’t be raised, but she whispered those beloved words with radiant face.
Each of us had our times of tears, thinking of the Christmases to come where she will be celebrating with the One Whose birth the angels heralded rather than with us. For the out-of town visitors, it was oh, so hard to put a final end to their conversation and say goodbye, not knowing if they will have another visit – or if, by the time they visit, our mother will be on the threshold of heaven. We are all starkly aware of the impending separation. But what a gift to be able to celebrate just once more while she is still here! What a joy to experience just a small foretaste of the joy we will enjoy together for eternity!
the susie solution 