Category Archives: Disease and dying

Studying the Pictures

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I love looking at photographs of Nate. Now that no more can be taken, each is priceless. When pancreatic cancer came along, a widow-friend advised me to “take lots of pictures of him.” That sounded odd, since I already had 190 photo albums in my basement.

Not himself.But there were two roadblocks to taking those pictures: (1) quickly, as the cancer gained ground, he didn’t look like himself; and (2) how do you snap pictures of someone who knows he’s dying, without making it awkward for them?

Once it was all over, I remembered what my friend had said and wished I’d followed her advice about photos, because we have precious few of his 42 days of illness. That’s why I often find myself in my basement albums studying the face of my husband.

What impresses me again and again is that in most of the pictures Nate has a child or two in his arms or on his lap. Not being a “natural” with children when we married, I’m reminded of how significant this effort was. These pictures, the ones in which he’s busy “doing” for his children (and by that, for me) are the ones that mean the most.

At Chuck E CheeseFor example, here’s one taken at Chuck E Cheese’s. The occasion was Klaus’ birthday (turning 6), and Nate is holding 3 week old Louisa, his 6th child, while trying to manage the rest of his own children and a dozen young guests. The Chuck E Cheese entertainment stage was in full swing with it’s robotic characters singing at peak volume, a frenzy at best.

Nate was working hard, and I knew he must have been hoping the event would end soon, so we could go home to normalcy. But from his place across a mob of children, he caught my eye and flashed a smile. It was one of those very private moments between a husband and wife in a very public place. And today it’s a precious treasure.

Taking care of businessAnother picture I’ve studied recently was taken on Christmas Eve. We’d lunched at Marshall Fields’ in Chicago’s Loop and were on our way back to the suburbs on the “L” train. (We only had 5 children at the time, though a nephew is also in the picture.) But once again, Nate is hard at work, watching over the precarious steps of a two and three year old about to stumble off the bottom of an escalator.

My photos are a poor substitute for the man himself, but they’re wonderful gratitude-boosters for the wife he left behind. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all that I didn’t take many pictures while he was sick. Seeing him in action (and in good health) is probably much better.

”Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.” (Philippians 1:3)

Waiting Patiently?

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Patiently waitingOne of my favorite family photos is this one of Klaus and Hans, our children #4 and #5. We were on a family trip to Florida in 1985 when these two little guys, ages 3 and 4, were demonstrating patience. They were waiting for the perfect wave to lift their mini- surfboards off the sand and take them on a smooth, danger-free ride atop the ocean. They’d done everything they knew to do and were waiting for the water to do what they could not.

It’s a perfect picture of faith. We wait; God acts.

Today is the 4th anniversary of Nate’s death. Although I don’t know if he’s marking time the way we are, sometimes I get impatient to find out. Whether he’s looking forward to our reunion or not, there are days I long for it with everything in me, just like the boys longed to ride an ocean wave. It’s not that I have a death wish; life holds many good reasons to go on living. I’d just like to be with him again.

My children don’t like it when I talk about joining their father, but my desire isn’t to leave them. It’s that we all leave. In other words, my longing is for Jesus to come and scoop us up for an exit from this world and an entrance into the next. And it’s difficult to be patient.

Last family photoNo matter how hard any of us wishes for that day, however, we can’t hurry it along any more than a gardener can force a seedling to sprout. These things are up to God.

Today a handful of my children and I talked about their father at lunchtime. Their spoken memories of him were like gifts to me, and we shared our feelings about this anniversary day. Talking about how difficult it was to be in Nate’s presence when he died didn’t make us regret being there. It was deeply meaningful to experience those holy moments as a family, expressing love to the one who was dying as well as to each other.

My Spurgeon daily devotional book has a simple note written on this day, November 3rd.  It says, “Nate died today,” a bare-bones statement of fact. Maybe I should have written, “Nate went to heaven today,” or something more positive. But when he died, my heart was so swamped with loss, those were the only words I could come up with.

That November 3rd devotional happens to be about waiting for God’s timing. Spurgeon wrote, “We are in a hurry, but God’s time is the best time.” The last paragraph is a note to himself: ”Come, my soul, canst thou not wait for thy God? Rest in him, and be still in unutterable peacefulness.”

M&NMy little boys waited peacefully at the shoreline, hoping for the best, and since I can’t do anything to hasten my reunion with Nate, I can only do the same.

“Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.” (Psalm 37:7)

Does it add up?

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A special dayFour years ago today, Nate and I sat in front of 8 doctors and learned his body was full of cancer. In that 2 hour meeting we also learned he wasn’t going to live much longer. I sometimes wonder if September 22 will always be part of a strange equation in my mind:

September 22 + medical news = death sentence.

It might just as well be:

September 22 + cancer = hopes dashed.

When I think of the specific hopes that were destroyed that day, the list is long:

  • the hope Nate would have relationships with our grandchildren
  • the hope he’d be able to attend the remaining family weddings
  • the hope we would travel together
  • the hope he would be the one to wrap-up his own legal practice one day
  • the hope I’d be able to ask his advice for many years to come

…and so much more. Since the memory of September 22 is all bad, should that day be deliberately remembered each year?

As always, I asked God what he wanted me to think about that, and he told me, showing me how often the Bible promoted looking back, even at the bad stuff. For instance, he said to the Israelites, “Remember when you were slaves and couldn’t change your destiny for 400 years?” But then he added, “Remember also how I ended it in one day?” It’s another equation:

400 + God’s plan = freedom

Red Sea partingIn scores of scriptural examples God directed people back to dark memories but always linked them to his presence there: “Remember how you were trapped between a vicious army and a deep sea? But please don’t forget how I rearranged your situation 100% in just a few minutes!” The equation:

military disaster + breath of God = 100% safety

In other words, God urges us to go back to difficult days but not for the purpose of wallowing in their misery. Instead he wants us to recognize that he was in those exact circumstances at the same time we were, adding good to all the bad. He knows we have a hard time spotting him in the midst of a crisis, but when the emergency is over, he wants us to look back and see where he was active during those days.

So now, as I think back to September 22, 2009, I also remember that that was the day God made a promise to us that he wouldn’t leave us alone or defenseless for even one minute throughout our ordeal, and he didn’t. Though he doesn’t usually remove a crisis immediately after it arrives, he does move himself tightly into it, providing supernatural strength and explaining powerful lessons about his sufficiency that always surround us when we’re experiencing trouble. He wants us to understand that every set-back is simply a set-up for his blessing.

So today, in remembering that sad September 22, God gave me a brand new equation to replace the old one:

September 22 + cancer = God’s presence with us!

“Let those on the hunt for you sing and celebrate. Let all who love your saving way say over and over, ‘God is mighty!’ ” (Psalm 70:4)