Category Archives: Aging

Good Night

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Nate and I had the luxury of sleeping in a king size bed for four years. As we sixty-somethings age, we appreciate a good night’s sleep more and more, because it’s harder and harder to get.

Our king, purchased to celebrate our 60th birthdays, used to be in a downstairs bedroom and was available to more than just Nate and I. Volumes of girl-talk happened on that bed, as well as lounging amongst the giant pillows while watching TV. Sick kids spent their day in it, and Louisa slept there for a week after her painful tonsillectomy. Friends of our kids claimed it was “the world’s most comfy bed.”

BarracksA year after Nate died, the king got dismantled and moved from our cottage bedroom to the room next door, an Army-style bed-barracks decorated, coincidentally, in olive drab. Beds filled the floor space for group sleeping when crowds came to town, and the addition of a California king meant sleeping three more.

I went back to sleeping on our old double bed with its well-worn sheets, but once it was set up in my room where the king had been, it looked small.

“Set-back!” it shouted.

I thought, “If only I didn’t need sleep and could stay up all night, every night. Better yet, if only night wouldn’t come at all and the sun would never set…”

Right then God moved into that scene and comforted me with fresh thoughts: Nate isn’t using a bed in his new home and doesn’t miss either our king size or the double. So he gets to stay awake “around the clock” and never has to face a lonely night, because there’s no night there. All of that was good news to me, because it describes my future, too.

Heaven's LightI’m still bound by day and night, work and sleep. But after I die, after all of us die, we’ll be free of this cycle, one of unnumbered heavenly blessings. Nate didn’t sleep well most nights, although it might have been those 15 cups of coffee he drank each day. The fact that he’ll never face another night of tossing and turning is great joy for him.

But for the rest of us, nighttime can be riddled with problems: difficulty getting to sleep or staying that way, nightmares, fear of noises or break-ins, feelings of vulnerability, and the chronic dilemma of every daytime predicament growing greater during the night. When nighttime disappears, so will these problems.

I still don’t like nighttime without Nate, but the old double bed gives me a pretty good night’s sleep. And because Nate and I slept in it for 36 years, it feels familiar, like spending the night with an old friend again.

“Night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light.” (Revelation 22:5)

You never know…

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Baby MomMom was born in 1912. Arriving several weeks prematurely, she was the fourth baby in her family. Because she was tiny, the doctor told her parents, “Don’t give her a name. She’s not going to make it, so you don’t want to get too attached.”

But Mom fooled everybody; she lived to be 92. You just never know…

Nelson at 9 monthsOur firstborn nearly died at nine months with a case of croup we thought was just laryngitis. When he couldn’t sleep for all the coughing, we called the doctor, who sent us to the hospital. En route, the baby went limp, his eyes rolled back, and we were terrified.

Thanks to quick, discerning doctors, he lived, and after four days in the hospital, he slowly recuperated. When it was all over, Nate and I fell apart, realizing how close we’d come to losing our little guy. You just never know…

Fast forward to 2009, when Nate and I relocated to Michigan. His plan had been to continue full time lawyering for two more years, then gradually scale back. But “untimely” cancer arrived, and 42 days later, our plans were shelved. Nate died “ahead of schedule” at 64. We hadn’t planned on that, but you just never know…

Celebrating lifeLast February my sister Mary learned that after 70 healthy years, she, too, was slated to tangle with cancer. Since then it’s been 1 major surgery, a couple of minor ones, and 3 months of chemo. We’re all hoping she’ll live to be an old lady, and so far so good. But as she says, you never know…

None of us ever knows. The biblical Methuselah lived to be 969 years old, but King David’s baby died as a newborn.  When we were born, God didn’t promise old age, yet we find ourselves angry when someone is taken “before their time.” If they’ve died, though, it was their time. We can’t know ahead, because God doesn’t tell.

???????????????????????????????The Bible describes long life as a blessing, and everyone seems to want it. Mom was thankful for her long life and lived each day vigorously, but in her last years she often said, “Old age isn’t for sissies.” Troubles of all kinds pile high on the elderly, weighing them down with woe, and she was no exception. In order for anyone to handle those burdensome days, great stores of wisdom and godliness are a prerequisite. So when we wish for longevity, we’re signing up for the toughest challenge of our lives.

You just never know…    But then maybe it’s better that way.

”No man has power over the wind to contain it; so no one has power over the day of his death.” (Ecclesiastes 8:8)

Praising and Praying with Mary

  1. I’m thankful nausea continues to be mild.
  2. And my new feeding tube, a different system than the old one, feels much better. PTL!

A Timely Tip-Off

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Aunt Agnes and meMy wall calendar has a name on yesterday’s date: “Aunt Agnes.” My orange pen is kept busy marking birthdays, anniversaries, and significant death dates on the different squares. Aunt Agnes’ name is in parentheses, indicating she has passed away. She died 34 years ago and would have been 111 today, had she lived.

Since Aunt Agnes died, there’s been a great deal of orange ink added to the calendar, the births of many babies and the addition of new friends’ birthdays. Sadly, lots of death dates have been added, too. If I live to be an old lady, will there be orange print on every square?

Most of us keep track of life by our calendars, and it’s hard to imagine a future time when we’ll no longer need them. But Aunt Agnes (and Nate) are living in a calendar-free environment along with millions of others, and one day we’ll be there, too.

At the moment of death, time comes to a screeching halt, a truth we have trouble internalizing. None of us has ever known life outside of time. Everything we do depends on the day-night cycle of 24 hours: sleeping, eating, working and taking out the garbage.

When we no longer have access to a clock or a calendar, how will we know what to do when? What if we forget some important dates?

I’ve been frightened thinking about eternity, not about the afterlife in general but about not having a way to mark time. God made all of us time-sensitive. It’s possible Adam and Eve were the only two people who didn’t give time a thought, though they did experience day and night, morning and evening. After death, even those general guidelines disappear.

Back in the sixties, during the Viet Nam War, POWs found ways to mark off their days in captivity, even if it was just a dot on the wall. We all want to know where we stand. Yet from ages past, Scripture has taught that we’re eternal beings, meant to live forever. In our heart-of-hearts we know that, but have we embraced it?

More often than not we ascribe calendar characteristics to heaven. We say, “Grandma has celebrated five birthdays with Jesus now,” or “Dad has enjoyed 19 Christmases in paradise.” This we understand. But from their perspective, heaven’s citizens know we’re talking nonsense.

Nate and Aunt AgnesOn several occasions I’ve sat quietly and meditated on the word “eternal,” trying hard to take in its meaning and begin thinking biblically. But each time it’s been unsettling. There’s always more… and more… and more. This doesn’t compute for me. It does for some people, though, Aunt Agnes and Nate among them.

I guess the only way to cope with such a mystery is to entrust it to God’s keeping, knowing he’ll explain it to us when the time… is right.

“He has set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)