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)

Being Chosen

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Tension escalated in gym class when the PE teacher picked two captains and asked them to select their teams. Some kids waved their arms, shouting “Pick me! Pick me!” The rest of us stood in a lump of wanna-be-picked, wearing the best expression of pleading we could muster. No one doubted the physically coordinated would be chosen first, but once they were in place behind their captains, those of us who were left felt our palms begin to sweat and our egos begin to bruise.

Being left until the very end, the last-man-standing, was about as humiliating as it could get for a young school kid. We all wanted to be picked before it came to that. Anything but that!

But what if we’re picked for something we don’t want? When Nate and I first learned about his cancer, it took a few days for the harsh truth to sink in. We were stunned, saddened, shocked. We went home and googled for facts about the disease and immediately thereafter began treatment.

Hearing it, researching it, treating it. Boom, boom, boom.

While we were focused on jumping through those hoops of misery, Nate received a letter from a close friend: “We love you and want to encourage you during these difficult days. At the same time, we know the Lord makes no mistakes. Nate, it’s hard for me to say this, but I feel he has selected you to be his testimony to many…”

Selected. Chosen. Picked… to experience terminal pancreatic cancer. None of us wants to be singled out for this team. All of us would rather be the last-man-standing.

Tom, Hans, Nate Oct 25

His letter knocked us flat, but as we talked about Nate’s friend’s words, it dawned on us he was probably right. God doesn’t afflict people with diseases just for the fun of it. There’s only one reason he would allow such anguish to take over a life and eventually take that life, and it would be to bring about something valuable as a result.

The more I think about the letter and the author’s statement that Nate was “selected” to suffer cancer and die as an example to many, the more I’m amazed at God. He chose Nate, and he chose well, because Nate was an excellent example of how to live through affliction. He didn’t fall apart even when he knew death was near. There was no railing against God, no angry “why me?” and no giving way to despair. He was a superb model of how to suffer and die, and he finished well.

The letter continued: “You can be God’s testimony to our and your children, those you work with, and Sunday school kids you have taught. We are praying your testimony will honor the Lord, even when you are weak and in pain.”

That friend’s prayers were answered. Nate never thought of himself as an example while he was busy tackling one day at a time, but already we’ve seen good things happen as a result of his life and death. People have been encouraged to persevere through their own conflicts and struggles, citing him as the oomph behind their willingness to keep trying. Some have begun the difficult process of pondering their own mortality. Others have taken a new look at God and his ways.

Nate’s being chosen to suffer in front of the rest of us as an example was, in a way, a privilege. That’s because the Lord considered him able to handle it. And because Nate accepted it as God’s will and took on the challenge with courage, the cancer’s power to devastate and destroy was negated. I’m sure the enemy’s anger was fierce as Nate’s foundation didn’t wobble under the worst possible stress. And the credit for that goes to God,who had prepared him ahead of time by setting his feet firmly on the Rock.

“[The Lord] set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the Lord.” (Psalm 40:2b-3)

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)