What a Friend….

Dear Daughters,

Grandma is declining.

There are people all over the world who are failing today, there were yesterday, and will be tomorrow.  Why does impending death not affect us unless it is someone we love, someone we have history with, someone who has deeply impacted our life?

The beautiful whistling that has been Grandma’s trademark for decades has now been replaced with moaning and groaning and cries of Oh Lord, help me, help me.  Several months ago, she was able to play piano for an hour or more at one sitting.  Today it was 5 minutes, then she needed a nap.

A few weeks ago, she accused me of waking her in the middle of the night to have tea time, asking Grandpa if I woke him up as well.  She wanders around the house at 2 p.m. looking for her pajamas (which are hidden in my room so she doesn’t put them on mid-afternoon). She will often walk up to Grandpa and ask if he is her husband.  She claims that everything around her is crazy and confusing and oftentimes asks to go home when she sitting in the very house she has lived for 36 years.

Going home.

I wonder if she is looking to go to her heavenly home, the place where her mind will be sound, her new glorious body whole and strong, and she will laugh again as I remember and am reminded by the pictures dotting the hallway wall.

As Madeliene L’Engle reflects, we die many small deaths during our lives:

Our lives are a series of births and deaths: we die to one period and must be born to another.  We die to childhood and are born to adolescence; to our high school selves (and if we are fortunate) to our college selves; we die to our college selves and are born into the “real” world; to our unmarried selves and into our married.

When we have children, we die to ourselves as we give life to a totally new person.  When we as a family moved from place to place we had to die to one way of life and be born into another place and community.  When dad and I moved from Michigan to Idaho two years ago, it was yet another step in the dying to one way of life and being born into another.

There are other deaths over which we have some choice and freedom: we can choose the death of self-will, the death of self-indulgence, the death of self and the living for others.  It is through dying these lesser deaths that may make us more fully alive, not less.

Maybe if we practice these smaller deaths during our lifetime it will make the actual moment of our transition less difficult.  On the other hand, there is nothing that will make death easy.   Even though dying is natural and happens to everyone, it still stinks.

Yesterday my friends Betty and Theresa came over to practice a trio we will be singing soon – the words of What a Friend We Have in Jesus to the tune of The Rose.

For the past few days I had been having a difficult time doing my work here, the emotions of the end-of-life care weighing heavily.   But singing those words with friends helped my spirit to soar, reminding me again about the necessity of giving my griefs to Jesus.  They are not mine to bear alone:

What a friend we have in Jesus,

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what peace we often forfeit

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer.

 I consciously talk to Jesus throughout the day, but sometimes I need people to help carry the load by singing with me, coming for lunch, stopping to chat, listening to stories – some funny, some sad, some frustrating.  Even though I have Dad to help with the work – staying behind while I go away, shopping,  listening to and encouraging me – I need more.  I need a community.

Thankfully, God has provided for us.   Yes, it is still lonely at times but we all have those times, the simple nature of being human.  I am grateful to you, my daughters, for your part in lending me your ears, your time, prayers and encouragement.

Dad brought Grandma into the living room yesterday while Betty, Theresa and I were practicing.  She sat quietly, her face expressionless throughout the entire song.  After we finished she shouted out Amen! the best applause we could have been given.

I admit in the past when friends of mine have shared with me the end-of-life stories of their parents, I had listened but not really understood what dying is all about.  Now, however, Jesus is graciously teaching me how to care, not only for Grandpa and Grandma, but to feel the pain of others going through similar times.

At night, I often tuck Grandma in bed and pray Psalm 23 over her.  After I finished the other night she asked,

What is your name?

I replied, Shari.

She said Thank you, Shari.

 Even though she doesn’t remember who I am, she is appreciative for all I do most of the time.  Sometimes, however, when I get her up to walk the hall a few times she calls me a slave driver – in jest I hope.  Just a few weeks ago, she was able to walk all the way down the lane and back.

We may have months, maybe less, with Grandma – no one knows.   In the meantime, Dad pointed out this verse to me the other day and it brings me comfort:

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting,

For death is the destiny of every man;

The living should take this to heart.   Ecclesiastes 7:2

 It is good to keep eternity in the forefront of my mind.  I think it helps me live better today.

Love, Mom