Faithfulness

When the doctor entered mom’s hospital room and informed her, along with those of us who were with her, that the pain she had been experiencing in her lower back for the past several months was due to pancreatic cancer and that the cancer had progressed to a stage where surgery wasn’t an option, mom reacted to the news with the same no-nonsense pragmatism that had served her well throughout her life.  Short of surgery, there were options available, the doctor said, and there were decisions to be made about those options.  Chemotherapy might extend her life by a few months, but the quality of those extra months would be significantly diminished by the side effects of the drugs.  Palliative care, to minimize the symptoms as much and as long as possible without chemotherapy’s debilitating effects, was another option.  Ultimately, mom chose to forego treatment and live out her remaining days with the assistance of palliative drugs and hospice care.  Pragmatism won the day.  “Everyone dies,” she said.  It was a declaration imbued with poignancy, not cynicism.

We took mom home and in quick order the front room of her house was transformed into a multi-purpose living and sleeping quarter, half living room, half hospice care room, with an adjustable hospital bed sharing space with the sofa, recliners and television.  She acclimated to her new normal well and things went as good as one might expect for a while.  A day came, though, when her pain,  declining strength and lack of appetite conspired to push the reality of impending death to the forefront of her thoughts.  One day she began to cry.  Crying was not something mom did.  She was the one who always wiped others tears away, never the one who cried herself.   “What did I do wrong?” she sobbed.  “What did I do wrong that I would get cancer?”

Her question and her tears were directed not so much at me as at her God.   But I understood.  Why, God?  What had she done to displease you so terribly that you would inflict this disease on her?  How much better could she have been?  She did the very best she knew how.  But her best, it seems, wasn’t good enough.  

Why, indeed?  I was taken aback.  Mom had always been the one with answers.  Now, it seemed, the time had come for me to show up with some answers of my own.  "Everyone dies," she had said in the hospital.  That's true. But not everyone suffers.  Not everyone lingers.  Why her? 

Did I have an answer? Did God?  I prayed.  I procrastinated.  I prayed some more.  And then God, as is always the case, supplied what his faithful child needed to hear.  The faithful child that was my mom.

“Mom,” I said, “God isn’t punishing you.  You haven’t done anything wrong.  You’ve always been the best example that all of us could have.  You’ve shown us what it means to live a godly life.  You’ve done such a good job – a fantastic job, really – of showing us how to live that God knows he can count on you.  He sees your faithfulness.  Because of that, I think God has entrusted you with a great and terrible responsibility.  You’ve been so faithful in showing us how to live that God is trusting you now to show us all one last thing.  He’s asking you to show us how to die.”

The directness of the words was startling.  For a moment, it was as if someone else had said these things and I was merely hearing them as a bystander.  These weren’t words of comfort and compassion.  They were words of stark obligation, an expectation that even in her pain and weakness  her journey was not yet complete.  God required one more thing of her.  I believed that what I said was true.  There was one last thing that God was asking of his faithful servant, a task that only a few can accomplish well.  And, somehow, I knew she needed to hear this.  “God loves you, mom.  And he knows how much you love him.  This isn't punishment.  This is relationship. This is God trusting you and you trusting God.”  And this became her truth.

We hugged and that was that.  Her tears were already dried.  Her composure returned to the stoic, steadfast Christian woman that I knew and loved.   

Over the next weeks, mom was at peace.  The ladies from her church visited often, the minister who would later officiate at her funeral came regularly to the house with scripture and worship songs and over the course of a couple of months, mom did what she had always done best.  She smiled. She comforted those who came to comfort her.  She was the quiet, gentle, graceful lady who made everyone feel special.  She was being the example, doing what was right and good and faithful.  Over those last weeks, she honored the trust that God had placed in her.  She showed us by her grace and love and simplicity of spirit how one ought to die.  But even as she took her last breaths, she never once stopped showing us something just as important.  She never, ever stopped showing us how to live.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.  You have been faithful over a little.  I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”  Matthew 25:21