Category Archives: Disease and dying

Life – Ongoing

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One thing about us widows is that we stick together, and the question all new widows ask each other is, “How long before I feel better?”

Meanwhile, life keeps happening, and a widow’s first hurdle is to accept the shock that when her husband died, the rest of the world kept going. Such a discovery makes her feel isolated, but the fact that life goes on can also be a motivator, preventing her from believing that there’s nothing more to live for.

Prints from Nicholas

One month before my husband Nate and I heard the words “pancreatic cancer,” we had our annual double-birthday party. By then we were grandparents to 18 month old Skylar and 7 month old Nicholas. Since both lived far from our Michigan home (Florida and England), it was wonderful to receive birthday greetings and photographs from both that year.

Prints from Nicholas.

Nicholas’ parents had made ceramic mugs for Nate and I with his baby handprints and footprints on them. This grandchild is 4 years old now, and when he was last here at Christmas time, I showed him the mugs. He matched his much larger hand to his baby handprint and enjoyed seeing how much he’d grown.

As I continue to use those two mugs, I can’t help but think how much has happened since Nate left us. And of course there’s more “happenings” to come. Klaus reminded me today that his fiancée Brooke never met her future father-in-law, since she came into Klaus’ life a few weeks after Nate died.

Klaus and Brooke.

But what he said immediately after that warmed me. “After all I’ve told her about Papa, she feels like she knows him.” Because Nate was important to Klaus, he frequently and freely talks about him. And because he’s been important to Klaus, he’s becoming important to Brooke.

Our loved ones may die, but as life moves away from their death dates, the influence they’ve had on other people hasn’t died. Sometimes it’s even expanded.

I love talking about Nate and the experiences I’ve had with him, and as I thought about this, I asked myself if I do as well talking about Jesus and the experiences I’ve had with him. Are the people around me, especially those who haven’t met him personally, coming to know him through my steady references to him? Do they “feel like they know him” as Brooke feels about Nate?

Life is moving forward. Birthdays are accumulating. Small hands and feet are growing bigger. Some people are dying while others are being born. But Jesus stays the same through every change and has promised to stick with widows (and anyone else who so desires) as they go through them. He’s just hoping those of us who already know him will faithfully make him known.

The Apostle Paul said, “I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me — the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” (Acts 20:24)

In the Face of Suffering

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Most of today’s news reports included breaking details of the Boston bombings. One interview I heard featured a psychologist named Jeff Greenberg whose specialty is studying people who’ve been forced (by events) to face their own mortality. It might be a terminal disease or something like the 9/11 attacks… or the bombs at Monday’s Boston Marathon.

This morning he said, “When these things happen, it reminds you of the fragility of life, and that death is something that can happen very suddenly and unexpectedly.”

Boston Marathon bomb

He detailed specific, predictable thought patterns people have as they try to cope with what just happened. One of the first things everybody thinks is, “How vulnerable am I?” This goes for those in the Boston area as well as the rest of us who’ve been following them on national news.

Immediately after the question about vulnerability, Mr. Greenberg says we move into firm mental denial: “Most likely I’m safe.”

We might begin blanketing our heightened concerns with a new level of attempted control: locking our doors more carefully, driving with greater care, avoiding crowds, gathering supplies for emergencies. By putting safety measures in place, we’re trying to make sure nothing unexpected gets to us. We think, “Because I’m proactive, I’ll always be safe.”

In the light of day and with intelligent thought, however, we know this isn’t true. None of us are immune to adversity.

This morning I also heard the story of two brothers and their friend, a trio of pals waiting together near the marathon finish line. After the explosions, the brothers had each lost one leg, and their friend had lost both. Their anguish must have been crushing, and the agonies ahead for all three of them can’t even be estimated.

Yet as the newscaster reported, once these young men were in the hospital, they were far more concerned about the welfare of each other than themselves. During the weeks and months to come, they’ll be cheering each other on while trying to share the burdens of their buddies, rejoicing together at every recovery milestone. Their futures will be different from their pasts, but the prognosis for all three is bright, partly because they have each other.

God wants to partner that same way with every person injured during the bombings. He offers himself as encourager, sustainer, leader, and friend. His desire is to “stick closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) Not one of those injured on Monday needs to suffer through recovery alone after an offer like that.

Honoring the victimsJeff Greenberg described how people become newly sensitive to their belief systems whenever they “look death in the face.” Monday’s bombings are another reminder, he says, that death is coming, and there’s no way around it.

Because of that, isn’t this the perfect time to say yes to God?

“After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” (1 Peter 5:10)

With or Without Vision

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One of the lastThis is one of the last pictures taken of Nate and me before we learned about his deadly diagnosis. I’m thankful for it, since it represents life before terminal cancer. Key word: represents, and an inaccurate representation at that. His life already did include cancer, and as I look at the picture today, I see it there.

Nate’s smile is not his own. Though he’s doing his best, his face can’t hide his physical pain. I didn’t notice it at the time, but today, in hindsight, I see it. Even his posture tells of something unusual going on by the stiff way he’s putting his arm around me, something that had always been easy.

I remember that picture-taking moment well. Relatives from North Carolina were visiting, and we’d just finished a lavish brunch at my sister and brother-in-law’s home. Even during the meal, Nate had had to get out of his chair and stand behind it to “take a break” from the back stress of sitting. “It feels better if I stand,” he had said. But a backache isn’t cancer, and we’d already known about that. After all, he was already scheduled for corrective spine surgery.

But hindsight is 20/20, and because I now know what we were about to learn then, I look at the picture and see it coming. But on picture-taking day, we were still blissfully ignorant of that life and death crisis, which in a sense left us standing in a place of blessing.

But what about the pictures that are being taken now, during these days? Not knowing what’s ahead, when I smile for a camera do I acknowledge that I’m currently standing in a place of blessing? Am I appreciating that I’m not in a life and death crisis today?

God has ongoing 20/20 vision both in hindsight and foresight. He sees the complete lifeline of everybody at all times rather than looking at each of us one way this year and another way the next. He has no regrets about what he has allowed to happen to each of us and can’t think of a single change he might have made to how he’s acted in the past. He doesn’t want to redo any decision he’s made and never thinks, “I wish I’d done such-and-such back then.”

In other words, he’s the complete opposite of us.

I’ll never have 20/20 vision toward the future like God does, but I can learn a few things through my 20/20 vision backwards. And what I’ve learned today from studying this picture is how important it is to acknowledge, in the here and now, that I’m standing in a place of blessing.

“Always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future hope for you.” (Proverbs 23:17-18)