Sunday April 13 2014
I had to go back to the 16th of
February in the little book “Jesus Calling.”
This book has been so precious to me and now to Dad. I brought it with me to Tillamook and Dad
right away made it the focal point of his reading every morning. He has been so blessed and encouraged by
these words of Jesus speaking directly from the page.
“Thank Me for the conditions that are requiring
you to be still. Do not spoil these
quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works in My kingdom
have been done from sick beds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search
for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be very liberating when your strongest desire is
living close to Me. Quietness and trust
enhance your awareness of My Presence with you. Do not despise these simple
ways of serving Me. Although you feel
cut off from the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement
in spiritual realms. My Strength and
Power show themselves most effective in weakness.”
Dad has been frustrated by his limitations. Yesterday morning he prayed that the Lord
would deliver him from total incapacity.
I think he is afraid that he is going down hill and that he’s going to
be bed ridden and have to be taken care of in a way that will be a burden to
others. He was so earnest in his urging
that God would just take him to heaven before it gets to that point. He has been so active for 86 years –
especially at the last of Mom’s life when he was everything to her. She needed him so much and he arose to the
occasion with nothing but fierce love for his dearest companion. He cooked, kept the house, did the laundry,
and tucked her in – several times a day – and got up with her at night. He never complained. His total focus was on Mom.
He has always been proactive about his own
health. The last 21 years of working
were in a sedentary job so he tried to get out and walk every day. He was 87 years old and still walking a
daily mile and a half. He knew Mom was
going to need care and he wanted to be up for the task.
Then Mom left this earth and left him alone. One minute he was busy 24/7 and the next
minute he had hours, days, and weeks of silence, a vast desert wasteland of
emptiness. The quiet was
oppressive. Lethargy was his
enemy. Only perky people hop up and attend
to the necessary chores with great zest, but he willed himself to keep up with
the dishes and laundry.
He talks about how alone he was. When Marion and Steve and I drove away on
the 5th of January – just 3 days after Mom had passed away, he stood
in the kitchen and said, “Jesus, can we do this?” If I had known what that year would be like for him, I never
would have left. But, of course, as Dad
often says, “We didn’t know how to do this.”
Meaning, we have never lost our dearest wife and mother before. We didn’t know how to act and what to
do. Even when Mom was dying, Dad would
say to us, “Do you think we’re doing the right thing? Do you think there is something we should be doing that we are
not?” And afterwards, “Did I do the
right thing? What did we miss?” Well, there are no instructions for how to
live after you have lost the most precious thing in your life. We had the “little blue book.” Hospice brings it to you to help you know
the physical signs of end of life. But
what the book doesn’t tell you is how to feel and how to know if you are doing
everything you should be doing so that you don’t end up asking if you did the
right thing or if you did enough.
There probably are millions of books out there
about what others did after a great loss.
But when you are in the throes of deep sorrow, you don’t say to
yourself, “I must get in the shower and get dressed and make myself presentable
and go to the library and find a book on how to help myself.” We are often not interested in reading a
book. People mourn in a multitude of different
ways. Dad has always loved TV. He has had his favorite shows: Andy Griffith, Matlock, Everybody Loves
Raymond, Rockford Files, Hogan’s Heroes…
just to name a few. But, in
those first days he was consumed with grief and he couldn’t sit still for very
long. His body felt like a load of
cement, his attention span was short, his mind a whirling dervish. He stopped caring about TV and for anyone
who knew him, that was proof of the depth of his misery. I am learning some things just now that make
me extremely grateful that God had His Great Hand on Dad. He’s been telling us that he would get in
the car and drive aimlessly. One time
he got into some snow in a place where he could not turn around and he was
praying that the Lord would save him from getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere
with no cell phone. He made it back to
civilization but it was a close call.
After that he just stuck to driving down town and finding a parking
place on the street. Then he’d just sit
in the car and read his newspaper. He
said it was his way of being around people without being a burden to
anyone. This was a great shock to
me.
What is so amazing to me is that in this town,
his hometown, where he has tons of family and many friends, he was alone for
days at a time. Two very delightful
couples, long time friends of Dad’s from church dropped in occasionally and
brought food. Once or twice another
lady in the church sent food to him.
His 90-year old brother called him on the phone on occasion, but he and
his wife are not the visiting type.
They have 53 great-grandchildren and their house is like Grand Central
Station. They have suffered the loss of
2 of their sons to cancer at young ages so they are no strangers to the
business of mourning. They grieve still, even though one son has been gone 11
years.
I would never be so arrogant as to discount loss
of any kind. Loss of a child or a
sibling is horrific. Loss of a parent
is a certainty that we dread like a surgery we know we must have, but we don’t
want to have it. We know it will be
painful, and the recovery time long. It
is an unavoidable fact of life that we all will have to face the loss of a
parent. When you lose a parent or a
child or a sibling, the sorrow is deep and the recovery is painful, but if you
are fortunate enough to have a mate, a life partner with whom you have a loving
bond, you can see this thing through together. You are a unit. You have each other to comfort and sustain
as you face the loss. You can cuddle up
at night and the very act of touching bodies in a warm cocoon can go a long way
to rejuvenate and heal. There have been
times in my life when I was facing great difficulty, but I was sustained by the
fact that I had a husband that loved me and at the end of the day we would be
together and he would be there to hold me and comfort me. Of course, make no mistake. Unresolved grief can rip a family
apart. Never assume that just because
you have a partner, everything will be just fine. Grief needs time and understanding. Grief needs resolution.
Not for it to disappear, but to deal with it and come to grips with the
reality of it.
So there it is.
It is my opinon that grief is many things to many people, but it is so
unique when it’s your mate, your lover, your comforter, your rock, your best
friend in the world, your other half of the unit that God ordained and promised
that no man could put asunder. A part
of you has been removed. You’ve been
ripped apart. And until you have experienced
that, you can never truly understand how it feels. The Bible says a man shall leave his mother and cleave to his
wife. The marriage bond is sacred and
should be revered. All the more reason
why the loss of a life partner is so heinous.
As I have said before, when you are in the midst
of excessive sorrow, your mind becomes a little skewed as it struggles to come to
grips with this horrendous, life-changing event that has robbed you of your
security. It’s for very good reason
that they tell you not to make any monumental decisions the first year. You should never sign your name on any
dotted lines, and by all means do not make any major changes to your present
personal or financial situation. We all deal with grief in our own unique
way. Many can look back and say they
cannot believe they did a certain thing and my dad has laughed and said, “It
seemed like a good idea at the time.”
When I arrived at the end of January, Dad had
been alone for 13 months. He was very
glad to see me. Looking back at what I
have learned since I arrived, I wish I would have just stayed and had never
gone back to Spokane. I wish it hadn’t
been because of the stroke that last Sunday in January. But realistically, I had a job and I had
bills to pay and it’s a good thing I went back because I was there in Spokane
when Bill had his total collapse. I was
there to make phone calls and write letters and send faxes to the Department of
Social and Health Services and to his Primary Care Provider trying to get him
some medical coverage so he could go to the doctor and trying to get his
provider’s office to believe me that he needed help and that he was so bad that
he couldn’t get off the bed let alone hop in the car and trundle on over to the
clinic to see what was wrong with him.
It was like running in treacle trying to get people to help him. There was so much apathy it was
frightening.
All the time we were here with Mom, we were all
busy. Marion was cooking and I was
doing the amateur nursing and Dad was doing the laundry and keeping the house
up. I was the designated night nurse
but we really didn’t sleep all that much.
Dad was sleeping more since I had arrived, but more is relative. He hadn’t slept much at all during the 2 or
3 previous months because he would not let Mom out of his sight. When she got up in the night, so did
he. But when she slept during the day,
he did dishes and laundry. So, when I
walked in the house on December 19, he was pale and there were dark circles
under his eyes. I sent him to bed that first night and I think that’s the first
8 hours he’d had in a very long time.
He probably slept all night for about 3 nights in a row. He was exhausted. But after that and for the rest of the time, I often would be
drifting in and out of sleep and about 2:00 AM I would open my eyes and there
he would be, bundled up in one of the wingback chairs pulled close to Mom’s
hospital bed, his feet on the foot stool, hat protecting his bald head from the
cool night air.
When we left Dad on that Saturday, January 5th,
2013 after Mom went to Heaven, he was numb.
It hadn’t really hit him, but he was mobile and purposeful. When I arrived on Tuesday, January 28, 2014,
things had changed drastically. His
speech was already beginning to improve, but his legs had stopped working. He said he had no pain, but they just did
not move. His right leg was affected by
the stroke but I really couldn’t see any major difference between the 2
legs. It was as if his pant legs were
filled with cement. He never let go of
the walker. It went wherever he went –
mainly because he couldn’t go unless he had the walker to clutch with a death
grip. I looked at him moving at a
snail’s pace and thought to myself, “Holy Cats! He’s Tim Conway – the doddering old man!”
I thank God every day for Adrienne. Adrienne is 35 years old. She is married to Brian and has 2 children,
Brenton and Emily. Brenton is the
little angel that started the whole friendship. Mom was still here and he was about 6 years old when he stopped
by my dad’s shed one day. Dad had the
doors open and Brenton was awed over how much stuff you can cram into a little
building like that! He was more
impressed with Dad’s license plate collection.
Dad gave him one to put on his tricycle and another one to hang on the
back end of his wagon, which seemed to always be attached to the trike. He needed that wagon to take the garbage to the
dumpster for his mom and other important errands. He and Dad talked that day and after that, Brenton would stop by
every day and pick up Dad’s garbage and he’d get the key and get their mail and
he asked to water Mom’s flowers. Every
day after school he’d stop in and if there were no errands, he’d sit and visit
for awhile and then he’d be off to play with his friends.
He is going to be 9 in June. He’s hilarious. Very creative and funny and some days I think he has A.D.D. When I’m in the room, he acts like a nut,
rolling around on the floor and talking loud. But if it’s just him and Dad, he
sits at the kitchen table (which doubles as my dad’s office) and visits like an
adult. It wasn’t long after Dad and Brenton
became friends that Adrienne started sending cookies and cake and homemade
strawberry jam and homemade applesauce and stuff over with Brenton. She finally
started coming over with him and bringing baby Emily – a month older than
Brycen. Adrienne is shy and Brian is
more shy, but one day Dad’s toilet broke and Brian came over and fixed it for
him. How handy to have a plumber at
your beck and call?? Brian is a hunter
so we often get the results of his most excellent culinary talents from the
barbecue.
Dad says Adrienne saved his life.
After Mom passed away, Adrienne and Emily popped in at least once a day
– sometimes more. She sat and listened
to Dad tell stories or just talk about Mom and how much he missed her. It didn’t seem to matter that he told the
same stories over again. She knew that
it’s cathartic to talk. How did she
know that? My dad looks back and is
constantly amazed at Adrienne’s insight and her infinite patience. She was just what the doctor ordered. Someone who just listened. She didn’t hand out advice or try to fill in
the gaps with platitudes. Baby Emily
was there to contribute the comic relief.
She is a cutie. Adrienne dresses
her in the most amazing outfits and they come over and Emily models for Dad and
he always has to see what she’s wearing on her feet. She has more shoes and boots than Imelda Marcos! Bright colored rubber boots and cowboy boots
and every kind of shoe you can imagine.
She gets piles of hand-me-downs.
When she’s finished modeling her outfit for Dad she goes in his laundry
room and takes off all her clothes and comes running out wearing nothing except
a big grin and her diaper. Adrienne and
I wish we could do that too. My dad’s
house is a toasty 75 degrees – day and night.
Dad has said that he doesn’t understand what has happened to the
church. The year following my mom’s
death was for my dad bleak and desolate.
He had very few visitors. He is
surrounded by friends and family. He
lives in his home town. But, he was
alone many days and nights. Adrienne,
the person he calls his “angel of mercy” doesn’t know Jesus. She and her husband were not brought up in
the church. They did not own a
bible. There was not a bible in their
house. Some of us cannot conceive of a home without a bible. By the time I was in Junior High I probably
owned 5 Bibles and several New Testaments.
I grew up in the church. I
was fortunate that my dad was my pastor in my growing up years. I thought all pastors were like him. I have since learned that some there are all
kinds of clergy people. Some are ministers – which to me means managers and
orators -- some are pastors – people like my dad.
Dad has told me lately that in every pastorate, he felt like he was
over his head. The only thing he ever
knew for sure was the God had called him to the ministry. He knew that he was where the Lord wanted
him to be. But, he says he was so very
naïve when he went to his first assignment and thereafter, he always felt
inadequate. He prayed daily that the
Lord would use him and give him wisdom and strength to do his very best. He and my mom made lifelong friends
everywhere they went but there were always a few in each congregation who were
determined to make life miserable for the parsonage.
My parents were careful never to talk about the bad stuff in front
of us. I learned after I was grown up
and married about some of the heartache my parents endured. In one particular church, there were a few
ladies who would laugh and giggle through his entire sermon. Now that I am
grown up and have taken my turn on the platform over the years, I know what it
feels like when people in the audience are visiting and laughing. You always wonder if you have spinach in
your teeth or your dress is unbuttoned or your slip is showing. When Dad arrived on the platform, he always looked
over at Mom sitting at the piano. If
she didn’t look horrified, he trusted that he was buttoned and zipped and he
felt he could go ahead with his work.
Dad always wondered why these ladies were so blatantly rude, but he
tried very hard to ignore them and concentrate on his sermon, trusting God to
get him through.
He occasionally got nasty notes stuck on his windshield. Years later he got a letter from a guy who
confessed to breaking his headlights. The guy had actually included money to
pay for a new headlight. I know it did my dad’s heart good. Incidentally, he sent the money back with a
note of thanks.
During those years he dealt with several cases of immorality and
when he tried to spare people embarrassment, they turned around and talked
terrible about him. That was the only
pastorate where my dad came home from church every Sunday noon –even in the
dead of winter --and hung his suit jacket around the back of a kitchen chair,
lifting the sleeves back up over the top of the chair to dry the underarms, and then
began Sunday dinner with an appetizer of Alka Seltzer.
It’s interesting to me that in spite of incidents of sadness and
hurt, my dad somehow ended up in what turned out to be a successful major
building program every church he pastored except the last one. When we drove out of town on to the next
assignment, we left behind a beautiful new place of worship dedicated to the
kingdom of God.
Dad has always been a people person. He was a great believer in “going calling.” It’s a lost art. It’s where the pastor calls on people in their homes and has a
cup of tea or coffee and visits for a short time. He doesn’t stay long, but he has said for years that you cannot
possibly get to know your congregation by shaking hands with them on the way
out of church on Sunday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment