The Wake

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Margaret

Walking into a funeral home is never easy. Walking into one with your husband in the casket is excruciating. Although Nate always said I would one day bury him rather than him burying me, the picture of that never formed in my mind’s eye. Today I saw what that looked like and felt the pain of it.

After driving the 90 minutes from Michigan, several of us entered the room together. Not wanting to arrive at the front too soon, we lingered to read the cards attached to beautiful floral arrangements. Waiting for us at the end of that line was the casket with Nate lying in it, cold as ice and still as stone. As we approached, I could feel myself getting nervous, shaking as if a shaft of cold air had whooshed into the room.

I remember seeing my dad in his casket, looking as if he was taking a nap. Mom looked natural, too, outfitted in a silk dress like she was on her way to a party. Today Nate didn’t look good. Although I’ve always thought he was handsome, today he looked worn, like a warrior who’d fought a battle and lost. And of course he had. The angle of his chin and set of his mouth made him look like somebody else. Only by standing to the side and looking from the top of his head did he resemble my Nate.

But what did I expect? The cancer had eaten him up and he hadn’t looked good for several weeks. How would dying of a ravenous disease and being placed in a casket ever improve his appearance? Even so, something in me wanted him to look handsome for his public.

Once we’d done the hard work of “the viewing,” we turned from the dead to the living. Streams of people began entering the room to greet us, each one sharing comments and stories about Nate. I learned things I never knew about him, even after 40 years of marriage. I met some of his clients, all of whom expressed gratitude for Nate’s patience with them and the legal tutoring he’d provided along the way. Apparently he sometimes did more than that, too. One lawyer said, “When I started my practice, Nate gave me a check to help me get going.” I hadn’t known.

Others described his contribution to our former community as a police commissioner, and the police chief himself gifted us with a uniform patch “to put in the casket with him, if you want.” Nate had been a commissioner for 20 years and had been one of three who had hired the chief. He expressed his gratitude for the job and appreciation for the friendship that had developed with Nate.

I talked with some of his former Sunday School students and a few of his small group members. Many of our children’s pals were in line too, along with their parents, some of whom I’d never met. Friends of ours from 25 years ago were there, reminding me of the fun of those days long ago when we were raising young children together. The security guard from Nate’s office building told me how much she’d loved him and learned from him.

Both sets of parents of our children-in-law came to town for the weekend, one couple from Florida, the other from England. Suffering from jet lag after a long travel day today, they smiled and told me, “We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

A pattern emerged. Nate had made friends all along life’s way, even with lawyers who’d opposed him. When personal opinions differed, he somehow managed to set those aside and connect with people on a different level.

Several parents from our kids’ high school came through the line, as well as the school nurse and those leading the music program Birgitta had been in. The variety of greeters astounded me. We were still chatting with people 90 minutes after our allotted time at the funeral home, but the staff graciously let us use their facility until each person had been through the line.

Although my feet hurt and my stomach growled, it was nourishing to hear accolades and stories about my husband. Many of those in the receiving line had tears in their eyes when talking of how much they appreciated and missed Nate. Somehow hearing how he was loved made me feel loved, too.

Tomorrow will be another full day as we attend Nate’s funeral and then caravan to the cemetery. Although I dread the finality of burying his body, I eagerly look forward to talking with additional friends who will be there. Any friend of Nate’s is a friend of mine.

“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.” (1 John 4:7,9,11)

Counting Blessings

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Margaret

Our first day without Nate has been jam-packed with wake and funeral preparations, trips to the cemetery and funeral home, eulogy and obituary writing, and shopping for proper funeral clothes. All of it reminds us that Nate’s death is the only reason for today’s check list.

The low point of the day was when Van’s Medical Supply arrived to pick up the hospital bed and related equipment. As the man stepped into our front door he looked me in the eye and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I started to tear up and said, “It seems like you just brought the bed in.”

He looked at the ground and quietly said, “It went so fast for you.”

Watching him break apart the sturdy automatic bed was a symbol of my breaking heart. I could hardly stand it and had to look away. Last night after everyone was in bed, at 4:45 am, I was longing to get my pajamas on and go to sleep but was drawn to the little room where Nate died. The hospital bed was still set up then, although the sheets had gone out the door wrapped around Nate. I climbed onto the bed with my face in his pillows and cried and cried. The plugged-in mattress gently rose and fell as it had when Nate had been lying on it, coming to life with the weight of my body. Oh how I missed Nate, even the Nate in the hospital bed.

As long as he’d been alive, even if breathing ever so slightly, I still had my husband. I was still a married woman. We were still a team, working together to keep him alive. Now he was gone, and his absence was completely final for the rest of my life. I began to understand why people can make decisions to keep their debilitated loved ones on life support, even though brain-dead. A person can still hug, kiss and hold a warm, living body. Caressing the dead is unthinkable.

Nate’s makeshift bedroom was rearranged and put back the way it had been the day the hospital bed arrived, a desk in the middle, computer on top of that, wing chair in the corner, bookshelves again visible. Last night’s atmosphere of quiet worship in that place had dissipated like so much smoke in a stack, and my insides ached to have Nate back.

Lying in bed at 5:00 am last “night” wasn’t peaceful. A thousand thoughts swirled in my brain as I replayed the important events of the 24 hours just past, savoring the memories. Today as I looked at the room where he stopped breathing, the scene reappeared in my mind. But God firmly reminded me of what had happened in the minutes after Nate died.

Our nine kids and kids-in-law had once again squeezed around the bed to say their final goodbyes. After Nate died, no one said a word. Then I began talking about what he was possibly seeing and doing at that exact time in another world, trying desperately to cut through the thick atmosphere of sorrow in the room. No one else spoke, unless choked sobs and teary sniffles qualified.

We all studied Nate’s face, so devoid of life and truly qualifying as a corpse. Our Nate was no longer in the room with us. That wasn’t him. What good would it do to stay focused on him… on that?

The kids and I began talking about the way it all happened. Before too many minutes had passed, we were numbering our blessings. On a busy day like yesterday, how likely was it that each of us would have been in the room as he died? We had wanted that. I had wanted that. And there we were.

There was the blessing of having Nate at home with us, around the clock, rather than far away in the sterile, fluorescent atmosphere of a hospital. There was the totally unexpected outpouring of love from those we know and some we’d never met, everything from checks in the mail to food in the fridge. And there was the mysterious power of prayer, prayed in great volume, bringing our family and our husband/dad into God’s throne room daily. As we named these blessings and many more, we were able to dry our tears and walk out of the room.

One of today’s happier tasks was to gather pictures of Nate for poster boards we will display at the funeral home. In a group effort to page through 196 albums, happy memories washed over us like a fresh breeze coming into a stuffy room. Chuckles grew into laughter and then into guffaws as we recalled funny stories the photos told. We studied Nate in all the pictures and our blessings list grew longer: he took us on great vacations, wanted us to have fun, taught us to fish, rode with us on motorcycles, always included our friends. One of the boys said, “Papa was just a legend.”

“I will bless my people and their homes around my holy hill. And in the proper season I will send the showers they need. There will be showers of blessing.” (Ezekiel 34:26)

The Hardest Part

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Margaret

Life has changed dramatically in the last 24 hours. Nate’s pain has increased at phenomenal speed, and we’ve had trouble keeping ahead of it with the drugs Hospice has given us. Yesterday, from around 3:00 pm until 3:30 in the morning, he was extremely agitated, attempting to get out of the hospital bed with energy so forceful we needed the adult boys to “convince” him he could no longer stand on his weakened legs.

As we talked repeatedly on the phone with the Hospice nurses, we decreased the intervals between medicine doses until we were administering one thing or another every hour. During our struggle to determine how best to overwhelm his sky-rocketing abdominal pain, the nurse decided to make a visit.

Her summary statement was, “He’s shutting down, one organ at a time, and is very close to the end. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow. Men hang on longer than women and wait to slip away until their wives are not in the room.”

I told her I wanted to be sitting next to him holding his hand if I could, when he died. “If that’s important to you, then do that, but be sure your words give him permission to leave you.”

She assisted and directed us in changing the Depends and washing him, pointing out the bluish toenails and fingernails, as well as pooled blood at his knees, back and palms. She also changed his white t-shirt. Just as we were wondering how she’d get the old one off without upsetting him, she said, “We have a trick for that,” and pulled out a giant scissors. Even after the soiled shirt came off in four pieces, she continued to use her scissors to cut the clean shirt up the back, leaving the neck band in tact to hold the whole thing together.

“Voila,” she said. “As good as any hospital gown.”

Mary offered to stay the night, and we sent everyone else to bed with a promise to wake them up “if anything happened.” Dozing here and there between 3:30 and 7:00 am in chairs pulled up to his bed, we each kept an ear open toward his gravelly breathing.

As the light of dawn came through the window, his throat and mouth were filled with an ugly grey phlegm causing him to choke and panic. We called Hospice again, and the nurse returned, showing us how to place drops under his tongue to decrease bodily fluids including the ones in his throat. She remained calm throughout the process over a 90 minute period, even as Nate struggled, until gradually his body responded to the drug, allowing him to breathe easier.

As I write now, at midnight, oxygen is helping him, and medicine every three hours is holding back his pain. He’s sleeping peacefully, pink-cheeked from a 105 degree fever as his body tries to cool itself down. We are thankful for his brief visits yesterday with each of our kids and several others while he was still alert and talking. They were able to give love and receive it, to share hugs and kisses and express gratitude. I’ll never forget how he worked to stretch out his thin arms to receive each child, winking here and there at things they said, using this creative way to stay in the conversation without words. Today those scenes could not have taken place.

This afternoon as Nate slept, the younger girls and I had a great conversation about what we’ll be feeling when we stand next to Nate’s non-breathing, cooling body. As the tears poured forth, we talked about his point of view. “We’ll all be crying,” I said, “but he will be happier than ever before. Let’s do our best to think about all that good stuff.” They nodded and cried.

As I hold Nate’s hand and watch him sleep, I search for a way to put this heavenly phenomenon into earthly understanding, so have pictured God putting the finishing touches on his dwelling place. Right about now he’s unfurling the rugs and putting fresh flowers on the tables. Nate’s prepared home (mentioned in John 14) is almost ready.

God knows what he’s doing within Nate’s body and in the lives of the others under our roof. He is perfecting his plans minute by minute, and we are trying to follow his lead rather than usurp it. I am keenly aware that our Lord has a specific moment in mind, planned from before Nate was born, when he will pluck him from this world and escort him into the next. No matter what we do or don’t do, that moment will not change. M and N in hospital bed

As we go into another watchful night of waiting and wondering when and how Nate will separate from his earthly existence, we hover between exhaustion and anticipation. As Nelson said tonight, however it works out, it will all be good.

“As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near.” (2 Timothy 4:6)