Category Archives: God’s plans for us

Record – keeping Mania

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After a husband dies, his wife is automatically enrolled in Record-keeping 101. The struggles we‘ve heard about for new widows are legendary, stories of husbands never having told their wives about their income or bank accounts, and wives having to rely on guesswork to unravel the mysteries.

Although Nate was a lawyer and knew the importance of keeping records, he wasn’t good at gathering them to a central location. At work he stacked manila folders atop file cabinets, credenzas, chairs, on the floor around his desk and in the foot well. Although he could put his finger on a specific sheet of paper at a moment’s notice, no one else could find a thing. And since he died, that’s been the dilemma facing all of us.

When someone we love is terminally ill, we push “terminal” to the back of our minds and focus on “today”. Asking a sick person to give us information we’ll need after they’ve died is a touchy task. How do you sit with a clipboard voicing one question after another without tipping your hand that you’re thinking past his demise?

I have a dear friend who is 84 years old, whose husband of 60 years died last August. While visiting, I found her in the middle of transferring accounts from his name to hers. The task had become a mountain to climb, despite her having excellent business savvy and flawless records. “I work on it a little at a time,” she told me, “but then have to put it away. It’s exhausting.”

As we talked, I noticed multiple piles of manila folders on the floor around her favorite chair. She knew what was in each one, just as Nate knew. The only difference was her piles were two inches tall, and Nate’s were two feet.

At that time in late August, Nate and I knew nothing of his cancer. My heart went out to this friend having to struggle so long and hard with the paperwork of widowhood. At the end of our conversation, she showed me a stapled set of three papers entitled “Estate Administration Information Checklist.” It was all about deeds, trusts, contracts, wills, insurance policies, stocks, bank accounts, loans, titles, pensions, taxes and other documents. There were 69 items on the checklist.

It occurred to me that if anything happened to Nate, I wasn’t equipped to handle such a list. My friend then gave it to me. “You can have it,” she said. “It’s an extra copy.”

I took it with me and put it in a dresser drawer, planning to study it later. But in three weeks I’d been told my husband, too, was going to die. I knew I needed to pull out the list and ask Nate the hard questions, so I tucked it into my journal and saw its edge protruding every day, pressuring me to talk to him. My instinct, however, told me to enjoy each moment rather than spoil our time together with cold-hearted quizzing. After the first three of our six weeks had gone by, Nate wouldn’t have been able to answer the questions anyway.

Today I slipped into discouragement trying to make a chart of Nate’s doctors, their addresses, phone numbers, the dates of his appointments and what occurred there, over three years of time. All of a sudden, at a low moment, Nate sent me a message. Actually, he sent two.

Cupid's heart Post-its 2

Paging through old calendars looking for scheduling clues, I found one of his Post-it notes clinging to the month of May. He’d drawn a heart with a Cupid’s arrow on green paper. I’d seen his Post-it hearts before and recognized this as his “I love you” to me. Five calendar pages later, there was a second one, this time on a yellow Post-it. They were just the boost I needed to continue my hunt for information, and by the end of the day, Nate’s doctor list was complete.

“The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength. You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever-flowing spring.” (Isaiah 58:11)

Death and winter both sting.

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I hadn’t been to the cemetery where Nate’s body is buried since November 17, nearly a month ago, and hadn’t planned on revisiting this week. But a friend made a beautiful decoration out of three kinds of evergreens, gathered together with a generous bow of green ribbon, and said, “For Nate’s grave, if you go to the cemetery any time soon.” I’d been in town visiting friends and attending Christmas functions for a few days and was within driving distance, so decided I’d go. I knew Mary Jo’s spray of greens would look nice on Nate’s grave.greens on snow

I arrived late in the afternoon when the sun was taking on a red hue close to the horizon. It cast a striking peachy glow on the cemetery headstones, reminding me of Mom’s playful word for a grave yard: marble orchard. The wind was whipping at my long, black coat, and the thermometer was on its way down to six degrees. Funeral flowers had been cleared away, but Nate’s grave was still marked by the shape of relatively new sod.

Once again I felt queasy as I thought of Nate’s body lying six feet under the frozen ground. His body was frozen, too, which was difficult to ponder. I had to think away from it, reminding myself of Nate’s warm, lively existence with God.

Mary arrived, coming from a different direction of the city, and together we laid Mary Jo’s creation on Nate’s grave. The wind blew at the bow and long ribbons, trying to assert itself but failing to blow away the arrangement. We huddled together for warmth and talked about Nate.cemetery, sunset

“I still can’t believe it really happened,” Mary said, shaking her head. “It doesn’t seem real.”

I felt the same way. My mind fast-forwarded to the coming Memorial Day when our extended family traditionally meets on the spot where Mary and I were standing. None of us had known on Memorial Day, 2009, that Nate would be buried there by Memorial Day, 2010.

Did Nate have pancreatic cancer silently present in his body last May, when we all gathered at the cemetery? No doubt he did. Would it have been easier to take his diagnosis, had we known? Probably not. We would have had knowledge sooner, and the doctor would have given him a slightly better answer to the question of how much time he had left. But with death coming as a certainty, is it positive or negative to know for a longer period of time?

I thought of the Scripture verse, “O death, where is your sting?”, a rhetorical question implying that death’s sting has disappeared.  (1 Corinthians 15:55) Standing in that cemetery shivering, my dominating thought was, “Nate’s death did sting!”

But that was only my selfish point of view. What about Nate’s perspective? From where he stands (or sits or dances or flies), he’s not feeling the sting. Christ Jesus took the “stinger” out of death.

Mary and I prayed together, thanking the Lord for Nate’s life and influence before we climbed into our cars and headed for the cemetery gate. The sun had gone down ten minutes before, and darkness was settling in around us. When we arrived at the exit, Rose Hill’s giant iron gates were locked tight. The sign next to them read, “Cemetery closes at 4:00 PM. Don’t get locked in.”

As we sat locked in, wondering what to do, a grounds keeper suddenly appeared with a key and a lecture. “Look at that big sign,” he said, disgust in his voice. “What does it say?” Muttering, he unlocked the gates and let us pass through, preventing a miserable night for us. The sting would have been in our freezing fingers and toes as car engines ran out of gas and heaters stopped. We were exceedingly grateful.

“He will swallow up death for all time, and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces. And it will be said in that day, ‘Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’ “ (Isaiah 25:8a,9)

Being Adopted

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It felt strange to drive back into the hospital parking lot this morning. Nate’s radiation oncology doctor had invited me back for a brief get-together, and I was eagerly looking forward to our talk. After I arrived, we walked through a labyrinth of hospital corridors to a wall of polished stainless steel, inside of which was another world. It was a club of sorts, just for doctors, where they could go to shake off the woes of practicing medicine with its unrelenting pressure and enjoy a gourmet meal in a luxurious setting.

“Oh my,” I said, looking around the room, hoping he would let me pay the bill.

“They would never let you pay here,” he said with a chuckle. “It can only be me.”

We sat at a window table covered in white linen, a creatively folded starched napkin standing up next to beautiful polished silverware. As the ginger-pumpkin creamed soup arrived in a china cup set on a white doily, we began our hour-long conversation.

The doctor started. “I remember back to that first meeting when you learned of Nate’s cancer diagnosis. It was a lot to take in, and watching you and Nate, I could see you weren’t absorbing what you were being told. I knew you were about to enter a terrible time with the pancreatic cancer and felt drawn to help you even before you got started, even before you accepted what was happening.

“I haven’t told this to anyone else, but I decided that day I would adopt you both and do whatever I could to cushion the blow as it came.”

I was stunned by his empathy and kindness. My mind traveled back to that agonizing meeting during which our lives changed so dramatically. Nate and I had both loved this doctor immediately, probably sensing his compassion for our situation and for us. Even that first day, on the way back to Michigan, we agreed we were in capable hands. Today he told me he sensed a bond between the three of us almost immediately.

After visiting the lavish buffet and filling our plates, the doctor continued. “You and Nate were shoved out of an airplane without any parachutes.” I nodded, appreciating the accurately descriptive word picture. “I wanted to be there to help you when you landed.”

Once again I was overwhelmed with gratitude for this unusual, caring doctor who had always given us copious amounts of his precious time without seeming rushed. And today he did it again. I asked quite a few questions, some about pancreatic cancer in general and others about Nate’s specific case. It did me a world of good to talk about the days of Nate’s illness with the one who knew every detail even better than I did, the one who had carefully plotted a wise strategy for Nate’s treatment. I told him I often thought back to those days, going over every minute in my mind, and he agreed this was normal, very common for spouses of patients who careen toward their deaths without so much as a day to catch their breath.

We talked about how Nate was slow to internalize his “fate” but that when he did, he’d done it with great grace. “I could tell Nate was very cerebral,” he said, “and that’s how thinking people respond.”

His comments revealed respect for Nate, which was a balm for me. I asked him how he got so talented at figuring out what his patients and their spouses needed next and what they didn’t need at all.

“My wife.” he said. “She taught me to listen at two levels when someone answered one of my questions. I was good at hearing their words but had to learn how to hear their hearts, too, the feelings behind the words.”

He has practiced medicine for over thirty years. “Pancreatic cancer is my thing,” he said. That’s probably because it’s always a miserable, hopeless disease. Most doctors would not want to specialize in that. But because he is the reigning expert at this massive teaching hospital, we were blessed indeed when we were put into his care. As the old saying goes, “When God guides, he provides.”

Time ran out before our conversation did, and the doctor invited me to come back for “part 2” later in the winter. I wouldn’t miss it. As life balances out at a new normal all around me, it will be gratifying to meet with him again, because he is a strong link with Nate and some of our last poignant experiences together, but besides that, he has adopted me!

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)