I've Seen This Face Before

(Originally Posted December 31, 2007)
As I sit here at my computer, my aunt is on her deathbed. Due to strong medications, she may not technically be “suffering” pain, but she is, without a doubt, suffering. A few days ago, we sat her up at the edge of the bed. It took three people to do so. She is just like a baby, where her head needs to be cradled, her back propped up, her legs moved by another’s strength. She could only take tiny sips of water, as swallowing is increasingly difficult. She is a skeleton of her former self. As she awaited her next sip, her head slunked forward. When she looked up again, her eyes were watery. I asked, “Are you crying?” She nodded yes. Perhaps she saw herself in the large mirrored cabinet doors. Maybe she couldn’t believe it had come to this. I can’t really know for sure what caused the tears because she’s beyond the point where she can talk.

Last week when I saw her, and she had a bit more speaking ability, she kept repeating, “I don’t know how Lucy did it.” Lucy, her sister (and my mother), also was quite weak at the end, spending her last days also in a morphine-induced haze. I told her, “You know, I”m here, and I love you, but in a sense, you are going through this alone, because no one else can possibly understand what you’re experiencing right now." She nodded. I hope she found some comfort in the fact that her sister had walked this road before her, and so, in a way, someone DID understand.

Several times, she has indicated that, “I’m going to die today” or “I’m going to die tomorrow.” When my sister Donna and I told her on Saturday we had to leave that day, she repeated it again. We talked with her a bit, and then she seemed to be distressed. She closed her eyes, and her brow got very furrowed, and her head seemed to vibrate a little. It seeemed as though she was trying with all her might to make herself die. It didn’t work.

Well, here we are Monday morning, and it’s New Year’s Eve. I haven’t made a call up this morning to my uncle, but my guess is she’s still here with us. It has been an inestimably privilege to walk alongside her at this time, for I believe that through suffering, one can find treasures of wisdom and insight to be mined, and, most of all, God himself is most present. We often don’t see it at the time, but afterwards, the picture becomes more clear.

Our model, our rallying point, is a wooden cross upon which the bloody, broken God-man suffered and died for "the joy set before Him." We must look soberly to the cross of Christ without fear and see that it is only through taking up our own crosses that we reach our final hope, which is eternal life and happiness in the presence of the Triune God, all the angels and archangels, and every one of his children, the saints.

Colossians 1:24 - "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church."

One of my favorite pithy authors is Mark Shea. He wrote this essay on suffering, which I found very insightful.