Celtic Advent - Day XXVII - December 12

 

Celtic Advent - Day XXVII - December 12

"Open your eyes and see what you can see with them before they close forever." ~ Anthony Doerr "All the Light We Cannot See"

It may sound strange to speak of death during Advent but I'm going to tell you a story from my experience of working in Hospice. 

Actually, I've got two stories. Just this one for now. 

I had been visiting with a lovely elderly couple, both in their mid 80s. They had been farmers all their lives - raising chickens as well as cash crops like corn and soy - and had also raised four children, now adults with families of their own. 

Jack was my patient. He had been diagnoses six months before with prostate cancer which had metastasized to his bones and lungs. "I guess I waited too long to go see the doc," he said to me. "The doc was not happy with me but, you know, until I got on Medicare, we never had insurance so going to the hospital or a doctor was a luxury." 

He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Live and learn, I guess. That's what Daddy always said. Guess I learned that one a little too late to live."

He winced. His pain, which was pretty intense, was being managed with morphine which he took in liquid form, under his tongue. 

SueEllen, his wife, came into the bedroom from the kitchen.  She was almost a vision out of a 1940s magazine "The Farmer's Wife". Gingham dress. Print Apron. Gray hair pulled back in a bun that danced on the top of her head when she talked or laughed. A smile that was warm and genuine. "I've made some tea. Please join us."

I assured her that I would be delighted to have a cup of tea with them. "How 'bout a brownie," she called over her shoulder. "Fresh from this morning."

"Twist my arm," I called to her and we both laughed.

She was no sooner over the threshold when Jack took my hand. "Promise me," he said. I looked at him quizzically and before I could speak he said, "Look, I really don't think I have much time left, so I need you to do something for me while you're here."

"Of course," I said, "but you should know that I never make a promise that I don't know I can keep. But, you can ask me anything."

"I made a huge mistake. SueEllen doesn't know about it. I never told her, but she needs to know. Before I leave, she's got to know."

I nodded my head for him to continue. "Look, I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did."

His words came out fast now, "I had an affair. It only lasted a few months because I just couldn't go on with it. She worked at the weigh station when I brought in the chickens. It just happened. I didn't mean for it to happen but it did. Before I leave, SueEllen needs to know that it happened and I'm so sorry."

"Of course," I said. "I will be here. I'll help you tell her."

"No," he said, and he coughed and then went into a spasm of coughing which triggered his pain. SueEllen came in from the kitchen and said that it was time for him to have his morphine, anyway, and helped him take his medicine after the coughing stopped.

When she went back into the kitchen, Jack said, "No, I can't tell her. I want you to promise me that you'll tell her. Tell her what happened. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I love her. Please, Chaplain, promise me you'll tell her."

I looked at him kindly and said, "Jack, I can't promise that. I can promise that I'll help you tell her. It's important that she hear the truth from you."

He looked crestfallen. "Please. Please promise me. It's all I ask. It's my dying wish."

At that moment, I could hear SueEllen in the hall and dishes and cups rattling on the tray. I got up to help her. I took the tray from her and set it on the floor and then steadied her with both hands on her shoulders. 

"I just got a little dizzy spell, but I'm okay now," she said. She took a few deep breaths and when I was sure she was okay, I left the tray on the floor and said, "I'll come back and get that as soon as I get you seated in your chair."

She put her arm through mine and we were chatting and laughing as we walked slowly into the bedroom. When we looked at Jack in the bed, we both stopped in our tracks. 

Jack was gently gasping for air. As we made our way to the bed, he took a few last gasps and then slowly, slowly, slowly, stopped breathing. 

SueEllen sat on the bed, and holding his hand, started to weep softly. "He's gone, isn't he, chaplain," she asked. I said I couldn't be sure but it certainly seemed that way. I said I would call the nurse, who was the only one who could legally pronounce someone dead.

When I returned to the bedside, SueEllen looked at him and then me and said, "Jack, you damn fool. You left before I could tell you that I had forgiven you for that affair you had." She looked at me and said, "He thought I never knew, but a wife knows these things."

"I had hoped to tell him that I knew and that I had forgiven him, and still loved him, but he left and now he'll never know. What a damn fool. Always was. Is now. Even in death."

I'm not really sure why, but the words came to me with some urgency. 

I said, "You know, the nurses tell me that hearing is the last sense to go after death. I don't know for sure, but he still may be able to hear you. Why don't you tell him that you forgive him and that you love him. He might hear you. We can't know for sure, but it may be the last thing he hears before he takes his leave and you just can't give a person a more perfect gift than a sense of love and forgiveness and peace."

She looked at me and then turned to Jack and told him that she knew about his affair and that she forgave him and loved him and hoped he would be at peace when he came face to face with Jesus, who had already forgiven him years ago."

I can't be sure, but Jack seemed to be at peace. When I looked at SueEllen, she said, "I think he heard me, Chaplain. Look at him. He's at peace. And, so am I."

What I learned in Hospice is that, part of the work of dying involves two things: Forgiveness and Love. 

A person may need need forgiveness or they may need to forgive. 

A person may need to feel loved or they may need to tell someone they love them.

"I forgive you." "Will you forgive me?"

"Do you love me?" "I love you."

Sometimes, it's as clear as it was with Jack and SueEllen. Other times, people never get to that point, no matter how hard I've tried to coax the story that they've locked so deep in their hearts they've even forgotten it's there. 

Every Advent, I remember Jack and SueEllen's story. And, I remember the stories of some of the other Hospice patience I've known.

I don't know how long it took, how many times these stories came back to visit with me, until I finally made the connection. 

Because of the Incarnation, we know that we are loved and forgiven.

Jesus came as the embodiment of God's message that we are loved and forgiven. That there isn't anything we can do to change God's unconditional love for us. There isn't anything we can do wrong that is beyond God's unconditional forgiveness for us.

Those two things. Love and forgiveness. The most precious Christmas gifts come to us every year, to remind us, until we finally remember. 

We come into the world and are assured at our baptism that we are loved and forgiven.

We spend our lives seeking those two things, sometimes one because of the other. 

In my experience, we can't seem to leave peacefully without them. 

I try to remember this every Advent, that the real gifts of this season are wrapped up in the mystery of love and forgiveness and that the whole point of this journey in life is to open up both. Use them. Treasure them. Cherish them as we would a newborn babe, filled with hope and possibility. 

And, when we know the hope and possibility of love and forgiveness, we can know the joy that was in the world that night in Bethlehem. 

What are the stories you are holding in your heart? Stories of love? Betrayal? Hurt? Things that you have done or that have been done to you? 

To whom do you need to say "I love you"? Or, "Please forgive me."?

From whom do you need to hear, "I love you"?  Or, "You are forgiven"? 

Make it part of your Advent journey to explore the stories you have locked in your heart and find your way to the hope and joy of unconditional love and forgiveness that is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. 

One wild and precious life

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean - 

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and he clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.