Category Archives: Thankfulness

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)

A Call Back to Prayer

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I can’t remember exactly when I started to crave conversations with God, but it was somewhere in the late ‘70s. One Sunday morning our pastor challenged us to choose one hour during the week to spend in prayer. His sermon detailed prayer’s incredible advantages, and when he threw out his challenge, I decided to take it up.

But one whole hour? It sounded like something only a monk could do. I knew with three little children at home, I’d have to get a babysitter if I was going to do it. I picked a day, dropped the kids at the sitter’s and went home to pray. Because I was tired, I decided to write my prayers longhand, a surefire way to stay awake.praying man 2

Once I got started, there were so many people and topics to cover, I didn’t even finish before the hour was over. I’d failed at regular praying in the past yet knew it was the right thing to do, so tried to pray another hour the next week, too, and every week after that. Sudden obstacles often jumped in the way, and sometimes I’d have to stay up very late, but week to week, the prayer got done.

I began looking forward to our meeting times and had full confidence God would always be waiting for me. And amazingly, praying brought changes. I wanted more of that so thought I’d try to bump my weekly prayer hour to a daily 30 minutes, and it worked well. Often we’d talk for over an hour. God seemed to bring that time out of nowhere.

The two of us sailed along with our daily conversations for 11 years. Then Nate got sick, and everything about our lives changed overnight. The schedules filled with doctor appointments, and our empty nest filled with family. My passion to pray was suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to spend time with Nate and the rest of the family gathered from far and wide. I felt guilty ignoring my appointments with God but had to completely let go of organized prayer. That left us with an intense need for God’s steady counsel but a lack of time to seek it out. It was a dilemma I couldn’t fix, and I felt terrible about it.

One day, a couple of weeks into our 42 day tornado of disease, my mind flooded with God’s solution to the problem. “I’ve appointed others to stand in the gap for you and yours,” he assured me. “Down the road, we’ll pick up where we left off.”

Then he proved it to me. Day after day we opened stacks of mail from precious friends and even strangers. Nearly every card included the words, “We are praying for you.” Some detailed exact requests they were taking to God on our behalf, and others cited specific Scripture passages they were claiming. An astonishing number said, “We’re bringing you to God every single day.” I will never get over such devotion and love.

And here we are, five weeks after Nate’s death. Monday morning it was as if I heard the Lord say, “How about getting together today?”

We’ve been meeting ever since. When I stopped praying those 30-plus minutes each day, unwelcome circumstances had rushed in to fill the time. But this week, the time came back to me. After relocating my prayer clipboard with its lists, notebook paper and pen, I could sit down and heave a deep sigh of contentment, thankful to once again partner with God in this unique way, because I need our conversations now more than ever.

“If we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (Romans 8:25-26)