Today I read 50 blog posts written by another family about their dad’s four month fight with cancer. He died last August at 63, a year younger than Nate. Although I never met this man, his daughter is married to my cousin’s son, so we do have a link.
As I read through John’s story, I felt an immediate bond with this total stranger because his battle had so much in common with ours. What appeared in every one of his posts was a report on his daily confrontation with leg swelling and pain. Multiple blood clots could not be removed because of surgical risk, and nothing alleviated this acute pain.
When I finished reading his story, my leg hurt, too. The day-in-day-out pounding of pain in the very same bodily spot over weeks of time produces an exhaustion and discouragement difficult to overcome. One of my daughter’s friends battles constant head pain, and after two years of never being without it, she said she wished someone would just cut off her head. She was only half joking.
My thoughts wandered back to Nate’s ordeal with pain. Until the last week of his life, his greatest misery was always in his lower back. This was a group of non-life-threatening bone problems that tormented him with piercing pain that absolutely never let up, not for one minute. When a man with ferocious fast-growing tumors throughout his body voices his main complaint as back pain, it’s got to be excruciating.
As I thought about John and Nate with nearly unbearable pain pounding them every minute of every day, I felt awful. Did I sympathize enough with Nate? Did I have his pain on my mind continually? Did I remember to care for that pain with fresh ice packs as soon as the ones he was using got warm? Were there other ways I could have helped him? Was I impatient in my serving? Did he sense it?
As we grew closer to Nate’s death, my willingness to work hard for him increased. I became eager to please him in even tiny ways, and it was satisfying to do so. The question is, why wasn’t this true from the very beginning?
Tonight I’m realizing I could have done a much better job helping Nate, not just during his six weeks of cancer but during the 35 weeks of agonizing back pain before that. I could have done much more to show him love, and from this vantage point tonight, I feel badly. Why was it I could sympathize and serve tirelessly when I knew his time was short, but couldn’t summon up that kind of unfettered help when he had non-life-threatening pain?
We ought to be able to love our loved ones sacrificially at any time, not just when we know death is near. And it should be especially easy to help when we know the pain never goes away for the one who’s most important to us. I look back on 40 years of marriage and see plenty of self-centeredness on my part. It makes me feel even worse to realize Nate didn’t complain very often about his pain. Did I take advantage of this maturity by acting like a self-centered baby?
The trick in marriage is to figure this out from the get-go, not when time is waning. When I knew Nate’s life would soon end, I could cheerfully skip meals, live on four hours of sleep a night, forfeit showers. What would it have taken for me to eagerly surrender those same rights and many others not just when Nate was terminally ill or even when he had insufferable back pain, but also during our healthy years?
Jesus Christ was our perfect example of sacrificially loving others to-the-max. Because of my experience with Nate’s suffering and my often deficient serving, I’m increasingly impressed by Jesus and how he lived, how he loved. I have a better understanding of how hard it was for him not to self-pity or feel like he should have been served by others because of what he was about to do for them on the cross. Yet he never made that demand or any other.
Oh, how short I fall.
“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5)
Good advice Margret. It really dawns on us after a loved one has gone, just what they meant by what they said or felt, could I have been more patient, sensitive, done just that extra thing for them. I went through it thinking of my Mom after she was gone. And today many times I have felt what she must have felt at times at this age and I was so quick to “preach” to her. Hope I learned that lesson and others!
I am sure your Nate felt surrounded with your love and that of his children as he suffered. But, thank you again for the thought provoking questions/statements. We all need to be reminded.
Hi Margaret,
Wow, I’m the first to comment- pays to be on a different schedule today. After reading your blog, my mercy meter is on the move again.
When my father was diagnosed with cancer, I was absolutely astounded by the care my mother gave him those last 6 months of his life… and petrified I would never be able to imitate should I find myself in the same position. Here is where dying grace comes in again- not just for the person who is sick, but their caretaker as well. It is as though a huge wave washes in, covers the person for the need, and then washes back out again when the crisis is over.
The truth of the matter is that you could never sustain such attention and focused energy over the long haul. When I broke my wrist, I got quite a medical understanding of how the body rushes its resources to the injured member, blood and fluid and scar tissue accumulating in extra measure. For the next 6 months that part of my body received focused attention to bring it back to pre-fall mobility and function. Now? A little stiff, but I don’t even think about it… until I try to hit an overhand serve! The body mirrors life and its relationships.
Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens, and then three verses later we are told that we should each bear our own burdens. Aha… a contradiction-post one for the Bible skeptics… not a chance! Two different Greek words- one is for the everyday kind of burdens, the sort that each person should handle on their own and not be “high maintenance.” But then there’s the sort of extraordinary burden that comes along that requires lots of assistance… the kind of assistance Nate required that you were enabled to give for an extraordinary period of time in your marriage. Such necessary hovering when he was dying would have been suffocating in health.
The other thing I think about is that Psalm 23 is written in the singular. Try as we might, we can never fully enter into another person’s pain. That sort of intimacy is reserved for the Shepherd alone.
A recognition of self-centeredness is proof positive of a life bent on being others-oriented.
I often marvel when someone says the reason why Jesus came was to be an example for how we are to live. Are they kidding? Like I have a smidgeon of a chance to be like Him for even a day? True, He sets the bar, but only to show me there’s no way I can leap over it on my own efforts. The Law came to show me I am a lawbreaker and need a Lawyer for my defense. You are so right, when confronted with a sense of personal failure, to be increasingly impressed with how Jesus lived and died… all for us.
Thanks for today’s humility that ultimately drew us to the Savior.
“Lord, we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of You and not ourselves. Any light that comes out of these cracked pots is Your light. Manifest Yourself through us.” 2 Corinthians 4
Much love,
Terry
Oops, Beth beat me- I took too long!
Dear Margaret,
It is not until after we lose someone dear to us (or come close to it) that we take the time to reflect on our interactions/relationship with them. It is true that the Lord does convict our hearts and motives of even the most nobel gestures on our part, bringing us into a place of humbleness before Him and regrets are part of the grieving process. During the vunerable time, it can easily fall into the dangereous mentality of utter self-condemnation (which is not from God) which will rob you of the good memories of the good interactions of your relationship and beat you down to a pulp with no relief. Whenever you have a blessed day of good memories or revelation,the devil is seeking any toe hold into your mind to rip it from you. I pray for the Lord to keep warrior angels around you to protect you from being robbed of God’s peace and joy and love and the comfort of knowing you did all you could do each day. Your blog journals reflect your earnestness of seeking the Lord’s hand and giving Him the glory in everything for each one of those days. All of us who watched on the sidelines are here to remind you of those positive truths to disspell any distortion the devil would try to play into your memory. with much and prayers, tlc
Well said, Beth and TLC…. Tender Loving Care?
Boapie- I admire and appreciate your extreme sensitivities to so many things, but please remember: you don’t have to beat yourself up. You don’t deserve that. Love-
Terry said it well. Many of us have watched/helped others, whether parents, a sibling and spouse, or friends. God is not displeased. I remember an earlier blog where you shared that He told you that others were holding the prayer ropes during those days. Likewise, your heart and hands at a time of great need were there as He directed.
Your “cloud of witnesses” agrees. Be encouraged.
This was so piercingly real to me tonight, as I recalled a moment during my sister’s last few days, when in an unguarded moment…after weeks of suffering without ONE complaint…I asked her some inane question, and she looked beyond me and said in heartbreaking tones..”I am inconsolable.” The amazing thing was it wasn’t a lament, as much as a fact that she was beyond human help…but not God’s. Remembering even the painful times is also a way of remembering her, and thru tears thanking God for those moments we shared, even when she was slipping away. God is so good to let us be there. Gratitude eventually replaces guilt, all because of His gentle grace.
The fifth will bbe located at Lake Nona, orlando which along with Portt St Lucie on the
state’s west coast. More orlando Gators Than You’ve Ever Seen in One
PlaceWhen you book a room. 5 kmp is expected. Thee Refhge haas over 140, 000 square feet.