Willard Nathan Nyman, age 64, beloved husband of Margaret, nee Johnson for forty years; dear Papa of Nelson, Lars, Linnea (Adam) Curington, Klaus, Hans (Katy), Louisa, and Birgitta; cherished brother of Kenneth; loving grandfather of Nicholas and Skylar. Born in Galesburg, IL, on August 18, 1945, to his late parents, Willard and Lois Nyman. Respected Chicago attorney for 37 years, active member of Moody Church and later The Orchard Evangelical Free Church of Arlington Hts. A believer in Jesus Christ, faithful to God and his family. Visitation Friday, November 6, 4-7 pm, funeral Saturday, November 7, 12 pm. at Drake & Son Funeral Home, 5303 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL 60625. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be sent to The Orchard Evangelical Free Church, 1330 N. Douglas Ave., Arlington Hts., IL 60004 or Moody Church, 1635 N. LaSalle, Chicago, IL 60614 or Pacific Garden Mission, 1458 S. Canal St., Chicago, IL 60607.
Nate is not a nature guy and doesn’t normally notice what’s going on outside his window. Today was an exception. Here in Michigan we had a summery day in late October with temps in the mid-seventies and lots of sunshine. The day begged us to “come outside and play,” so the two of us decided to take a short ride. Although I’d planned to drive to our tiny town a mile away, as we were weaving through the subdivision Nate began commenting on the beauty of the colored leaves.
“Wow, look at that yellow one. And the red over there. Are the colors darker than usual this year?”
Instead of driving to town, we drove to a beach-look-out with a wooden deck. Since no one was there, I drove right up to the planks so Nate had only four small steps from his car door to the railing. There was a bench on the deck drenched in sunlight, and a warm breeze was blowing off Lake Michigan.
“Could you tolerate that bench for a while?” I asked, hoping he could. And he nodded.
We sat quietly, taking in the beauty of the lake, the sand, waving dune grasses and endless fall color. Some people don’t like autumn, because colored leaves represent a process of dying, and they know bare trees will soon follow.
Our family’s reality is similar in that Nate is in the process of dying. Strangely, though, this season, much like autumn, has a spectacular beauty to it, and none of us want to minimize that just because we know what season comes after this one. The Bible says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven, a time to be silent… a time to lose… a time to weep… a time to mourn… and a time to die.” (parts of Ecclesiastes 3)
Although we are moving along the time line that includes every one of those negatives, God is simultaneously providing counterpart-positives. This morning, I looked at Nate sitting on the bench. He is on the losing side in every physical category, losing muscle, balance skills, the ability to read and write, clear thinking. Yet there we sat, enveloped in beauty, enjoying the season around us, and thus enjoying ourselves.
This sounds terrible, but there is much about our season of dying that we’re all enjoying. Our family is together, providing tremendous support, counsel and love to each other. Our grandbabies are with us, punctuating the air with giggles and baby talk. Prayer is the staple of nearly every hour. Scripture rescues difficult moments by delivering sustenance and vigor. Friends are bringing a steady stream of delicious, healthy meals to our door. My calendar is empty, absent of pressure to accomplish. Our mailbox is full of loving greetings. We have time to ponder, to converse and to wait.
The Ecclesiastes passage says, “There is a time to love.” Love takes time, and right now we have time all day long, every day. We only have today without any promise of tomorrow, and at any time a flurry of health-related activity might spin into our peaceful home. But for this day, we have time, both quantity and quality, and we are delighting in it.
In the mean time, many of the other positives of Ecclesiastes are also taking place, right now: a time to laugh, a time to heal (relationships), a time to get, to keep, to embrace, a time of peace. We’re experiencing all of that, and its wonderful.
The same chapter also says, “God has made everything beautiful in his time.” (verse 11) It’s not just the good times of laughter, dancing and healing that he makes beautiful. He makes everything beautiful! The one condition is that the beauty will be evident only in his time, not ours. I believe these days of preparation for Nate’s “time to die” have been made beautiful by God’s detailed involvement.
Autumn is a time of dying, yes, but the process is undeniably beautiful. It’s breathtaking. As we took it all in on the bench overlooking the dunes ablaze with fall color, we couldn’t see winter’s bare trees. We know they’re coming, but that can’t spoil today. We know death’s awful separation is coming, too, but we won’t let it ruin the now-moments. God has made everything beautiful in his time, and that time is right now.
Now that Nate has ten radiation treatments under his belt, we’ve gotten acquainted with the eleven a.m. crowd in the waiting room. Each of us has the same time slot five days a week. Some arrive in wheelchairs and others with canes or walkers. One elderly gentleman has a gleaming cane of clear Lucite with a thick, see-through handle. Gorgeous. Another man brings a white flannel blanket, wrapping himself in its comfort as he awaits his turn on the ice cold table. A young mom, waiting for her husband to finish treatment, brings their four year old daughter with her bag of crayons and coloring books.
Creative head gear abounds, keeping bald heads warm. We see everything from baseball caps to fancy scarves, knit hats and head wraps. The waiting room is freshly decorated in dusty green with cushy seating for 32. Making sure coffee, tea and hot chocolate are available for all of us, a receptionist keeps the pots fresh with new brew. A flat screen TV tuned to CNN talks softly, but no one is watching.
Looking around the room, I wonder about everyone’s story. All are fighting a battle they might not win. The bottom line is that they want to beat the greatest enemy of their lives: death.
Several precious friends of ours are praying for Nate’s complete healing from his metastasized pancreatic cancer. Although I have no doubt about God’s ability to do that, he probably won’t. And if he doesn’t, I trust he has excellent reasons. We’ve already experienced some of them as our family has drawn together and shared unnumbered blessings from each other and countless others.
I’ve polled all the friends I know whose mates have died of cancer. Some of those spouses never accepted their own mortality, even on their death beds. Others believed they would die, based on the probabilities. Which is better?
I believe Nate’s cancer is the beginning of the end. Before we’re done with this whole mess, I may swing around to the opposite point of view, but for today, my reasoning goes like this:
If we expect death and receive healing, what unbounded joy we will have!
If we expect healing and get death, priceless opportunities will have been lost.
When a dying person finally gives in to the excruciating reality that earthly life is ending, not one moment is squandered on anything without eternal benefit. The rest of us might bop along through our days, filing “eternity” in a special category labeled “some day.” In reality, all of us are up against eternity, but the terminally ill are the only ones thinking seriously about it.
Nate’s alert moments are fewer each day. He has excellent plans to have one-on-one time with each of his children and with me, to get some significant things said. He’s thinking, planning, jotting down words on Post-it notes. I pray he’ll have time to say and do all he’s hoping he can. His words will be cleansing for him and life-altering for us.
Before he gets to that, however, he’s trying to put other categories of his life in order. He’s given me the phone numbers to call when he’s gone. He’s put my name on his bank account. He’s drawn up a power of attorney for me. He’s straining hard to think straight while taking narcotics to deaden pain.
His priceless plans are being acted upon only because he believes he is soon going to die. If he was focusing on a miraculous healing, these important tasks would remain undone, just like our friends who died saying, “I can still beat this.” In those cases, there were no life challenges, no thank yous, no handing off of responsibilities, no goodbyes.
Recently, Nate was sitting quietly, his hands fingertips-to-fingertips on his chest when he said, “If I was healed of this cancer, I know I’d be a changed man. But at some point down the road I’d just have to go through it all over again.”
It was a telling statement and, I believe, an acknowledgment that the number of his days is soon to finish.
“You (God) saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (Psalm 139:16)
