Category Archives: Aging

Length of Days

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“September Song” is the title of an old tune written for a Broadway show in 1938, and one of its lines says, “It’s a long, long while from May to December, but the days grow short when you reach September.” As sunrises and sunsets go, that’s true.

Stina and EvanBut this September, which is in the record books as of today, my niece Stina got married in the middle of the month. And as God would have it, our whole relation came together for the event. Though September days may be growing shorter, we packed a-lotta-livin’ into each one.

Our family has had lots of weddings, but not everyone has been able to attend each event. This time, though, all 49 of us came together to witness and celebrate Stina and Evan’s marriage. But the other reason we assembled was all about the mother of the bride.

Post-opLast February Mary was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In March she had the extensive Whipple surgery at Mayo Clinic, ridding herself of a baseball-size tumor as well as parts of her pancreas, intestine, gall bladder, and bile duct-work. The surgery was textbook-perfect, and no other cancer was found in the many scans that followed.

Chemotherapy began in May, and this week she completed the 16th of 18 infusions. She’s on the home stretch, and we are all quick to say the end is in sight, not just the end of chemo but the end of cancer. Yet no doctor will use the beautiful word “cured.” Mary herself hasn’t been disappointed by that, testifying that God has taught her a couple of important things since February: (1) to be grateful for each day she’s given, and (2) to live each one to the fullest.

When a cancer diagnosis is handed to a loved one, the whole relation joins into the misery of adjusting to it. And an overwhelming instinct is to rush toward that cherished one, hurrying into her presence with an urgency that feels like she might disappear any second.

None of us has a guarantee that we’ll live on and on, but part of cancer’s wickedness is to hang a permanent threat above the head of the diagnosed one. And when we love that person dearly, cancer becomes a threat to us all. That, I believe, is one reason every family member worked hard to clear schedules, buy plane tickets, pack for old and young alike, and make it to Stina and Evan’s wedding.

???????????????????????????????The days grow short when you reach September, but God tells us the “length of days” is shortening for all of us, every day of every month, not just in September. Day by day, hour by hour, we’re all on a sliding scale of “time remaining.”

Once we accept that, the whole group of us (along with anyone else in a cancer-touched family) becomes empowered to step out from under the threatening cancer-cloud hanging overhead. And it’s reason enough for 48 of us to learn what Mary has learned by way of her cancer: to be thankful for each day of life we’re given, and to live them all to the fullest.

Cling to the Lord your God, for He is your life and the length of your days. (Deuteronomy 30:20)

Letting Go

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Most parents face a bit of angst when it comes time to let a child go. The first really big “go” is off to college, a tough goodbye for most of us. But it helps to recognize we’ve been letting go in small ways during the 18 years leading up to that, each one a bit of training for the bigger go-moments.

The first is letting go of our babe-in-arms, encouraging him/her to grow into a toddler who prefers to walk. Little by little they go – to the church nursery, preschool, kindergarten, summer camp, and we find ourselves on the outside looking in. As time passes, they go farther and farther from us, the natural order of things. But they aren’t the only ones we have to let go of.

We also say goodbye to parents, mentors, friends, pastors and others. Each positive relationship that ends includes a negative go-moment. But the old expression, “When God closes a door, he opens a window,” is true. Again and again he shows us that letting go of one thing brings us to something new.

Two Ton BakerWhen I was a grade-schooler in the 1950’s, I loved a 350-pound TV personality who called himself Two-Ton Baker. We became friends through a tiny, round screen, because Two-Ton loved kids. Occasionally he’d have one on his show, and the child was always invited to grab a handful of candy from a giant glass jar. But a clenched fist of goodies could never fit back through the small opening, requiring him/her to let some of the candy go to pull out of the jar.

The same thing happens when we hold onto someone or something after it’s time to let go. Our loss seems greater the tighter we cling. By hanging on, we lose the chance for a positive send-off, which is like losing all the candy, not just a bit of it.

There are some go-moments, though, that just never go well: when they’re next to a casket. The slam of that closed door really hurts. A window may be opening, but we can’t see it through our tears.

Lonely JesusGod knows how difficult it is to let go. He let go of Jesus for 33 years after they’d been joined in a closeness we can’t comprehend. And Jesus let go of his Father while simultaneously imposing human limitations on himself. He also let go of royalty and riches to live in poverty. The reason? Love for us.

Letting go is always emotionally draining. For a Christian who lets go of a loved one through death, however, the emotional pain will one day abruptly end.  The separation is only temporary, just as it was for God the Father and God the Son.

They endured. We can endure.

Because some day all our go-moments will be gathered into one eternal coming-together.

“God blesses you who weep now, for in due time you will laugh.” (Luke 6:21)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. Thanks for prayers about tomorrow’s chemo infusion, for a good vein and no nausea.
  2. Praise God this will be #16 of 18 infusions!

Lookin’ Good!

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This afternoon Mary and I talked about the ravages of time on our old faces and the magic of plastic surgery. Not that we’d do it, even though the mirror says we should. (It’s easier just to avoid the mirror.) But this afternoon we participated in a face lift of a different sort. The two of us put fresh upholstery on eight dining room chairs, a simple way to “lift” a room.

Upholstery staple gunTo be successful required the right tools. Factory-tightened screws can be difficult to loosen, and succeeding assumes you’ve got the right screwdriver. You also need a staple gun, a tool that doubles as a weapon of mass destruction. Keeping a hammer handy is good for staples that don’t go all the way in, and a pliers is effective in yanking out the hopeless ones. A box of Band-Aids isn’t a bad idea, either.

Upholstery staple rejectsDoing something new is never easy, and trudging up the learning curve usually includes a measure of slip-backs: our chair corners ended up with too many folds; staples went in loosey-goosey and needed to be yanked out and redone; stray fabric peeked out from the chair frame, another re-do; one staple-shot grazed my finger and drew blood. But each chair we did got a bit easier and ended up looking nicer than the one before.

Isn’t that the way with life? When something new comes to us, particularly something we don’t want, we look for ways to step away from it. When we finally accept it, it’s usually not as bad as we anticipated. Practice may not make perfect, but working hard to learn something brings improvement.

God often asks us to do new things we don’t want to do, like love unlovable people, suffer intense pain, surrender a spouse or a child, care for someone who doesn’t appreciate it, or wait “forever” to see our prayers answered. But we can get better at handling each of God’s assignments by simply cooperating with his tutoring since he’s the great Supplier of know-how. As we tackle what he sends, little by little we work out the kinks.

Upholstery team workOf course God’s “chores” are far more complicated than fixing up old chairs, but Mary and I learned a few things as we went along. When we started out, our confusion, misuse of tools and lack of knowledge caused us to lose 45 minutes on the first chair. As we went along, there were set-backs and failures, but each cushion taught us better ways to do the same job. The last chair took only six minutes, start to finish. Gathered around the dining room table, our 22 year old chairs don’t show their age at all.

Now, if only Mary and I could use our improved stapling skills to give each other face lifts.

Jesus said, “Blessed are all who hear the word of God and put it into practice.” (Luke 11:28)