Dearest Rachel –
While the crisis has passed for now – Dad is settled in a nearly convalescent home, and undergoing physical and occupational therapy, such that he neither requires nor necessarily event wants too many people around him for too long thereafter, as he’s too tired to socialize, and will say so – there were more than a few moments when, sitting at his bedside, I wasn’t sure which one would be the last one I would ever have with him. And although we will all have a last moment with everyone eventually, and theoretically we ought to approach each interaction with a sort of knowledge of this, the knowledge is usually so far in the back of our minds as to not be there at all. But seated at what, at least in the moment, appears to be one’s deathbed, it focuses the mind incredibly.
Or at least, you’d think it should.
Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Dr. Samuel Johnson
And maybe Doctor Johnson was onto something; at the moment when one is on the precipice between life and death, they suddenly understand what is and isn’t (or perhaps more accurately, what was and wasn’t) important in their life. Just as the old maxim about how no one finds themselves wishing they’d spent more time at the office at this point is true, so too does this individual understand in that moment what they did wish they’d spent more time and emotional capital on.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Helen Howard Lemmel, “The Heavenly Vision”, 1922
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
All of which is well and good and noble, and the insight gained by the dying person in that moment is invaluable. But it’s impossible to impart to those of us who sit by their side, wondering what to say in that same moment. The fact remains that our entire experience is that of “the things of earth”; if it’s all so “strangely dim,” where does that leave us, as we sit by their side?
And please, don’t tell me that I ought to be silent; I’ve spent enough time at Dad’s side saying absolutely nothing over these past couple of weeks. And while I’ll agree that it’s easy to do so (especially since I have nowhere that I’m needed to be), it never feels sufficient. If I’m not making a sound, does he know I’m here? Would it make any difference if I wasn’t? And if not, why am I bothering?
I know better than this, honey; I’m pretty sure that, even in that moment, he would want to know we were by him in his last moments. So I am there, wondering what to say – and well aware that anything I say would be a triviality in comparison to the eternity before him. It’s like standing next to him as we survey the Grand Canyon together, and speculating aloud about what one could fill it with, and how much it could hold.
Suddenly, I understand why Peter offered to build shelters for Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the Mountain of Transfiguration. Not that it excuses him, or anything.
***
You might remember a trip the family took up to a ski resort in the northernmost part of Wisconsin about two decades ago. One of our cousins, several times removed, owned the place; during the summer (when there wasn’t the tourist traffic), we used to gather there as an extended family every year or every other year as a reunion. The one in 2003, however, turned out to be our last – at least, that I can recall.
One thing that I remember from that get-together was the showing of a video that had been taken of the last get together of ‘the seven siblings’ – my grandmother and all her sisters, plus her brother Carl. It wasn’t that they had been estranged or anything – far from it – but it was just difficult to arrange these things, between schedules, geographic distance and health limitations (especially since, at the time the video was taken, in 1986, they were all in their seventies and eighties). So this was a special moment, as they wandered about downtown Chicago where they had grown up, reminisced about their childhood together.
Of course, I don’t remember it for the stories they were telling as they did this; I remember it for my part in the video, one that makes me cringe to think of it. Mom and Dad hosted the siblings for a luncheon, and at some point, I was helping serve the meal. It was shortly after I’d graduated high school, and one of the siblings (probably Grandma, because that’s what grandmothers do) asked about my plans for college. This led me to natter on about how I was looking forward to the extracurricular activities I was hoping to involve myself in, particularly on the radio station. Looking at it in 2003, you can see why it bothered me to watch; that was so insignificant a thing to be talking about. Sure, I did wind up with a show for a couple of semesters on opposite ends of my college career, but what of it? Was that what I wanted to have as the last thing I would talk about to my ancestors?
It might have made more sense if that had become my life’s work. If I got into radio (or even become a YouTube ‘name’), then my obsession with the topic at that time would have made sense: “Oh, look – you were into that even back then, weren’t you, Randy?” But of course, that was such a peripheral part of my life, and ultimately came to nothing, that it embarrasses me to see myself dwelling on the possibility even now.
I did take it to heart as I got older; you might recall my admonition to everyone in our wedding party to “say hello to the future” when the videographer came around as we stood in the reception line. At the same time, though, I had nothing more significant to say to the future, aside from merely being aware of it and acknowledging it, knowing it would be those from then who would see us. But what can you say to them, any more than you would to a dying individual?
***
There’s a phrase repeated several times throughout The Incredibles that speaks of this, which maybe I should take it to heart in a glass-half-full way, as opposed to the glass-half-empty perspective the movie takes. Then again, what I’m observing this on is a decidedly negative thing, whereas Dash and Syndrome, respectively, were denigrating an assumed positive. When the young son of the family expresses a desire to be “special” (which, having superpowers like the rest of the family – but not like most ordinary people in the world of the film – he is), his mom acknowledges that he is, but adds that “everyone is special,” which he turns around, claimed her statement is “another way of saying no one is.” Likewise, the villain plans to manufacture equipment that allows any human to have effective superpowers, thus negating any of the Incredibles’ abilities, since “when everybody’s super… no one is.”
With this in mind, perhaps I shouldn’t get so overwrought about how trivial anything I might say or do might be. In the final analysis, everything is trivial; everything we know is part of “the things of earth,” and will grow strangely (or perhaps, not so strangely) dim in the light of God and Jesus and the eternity He holds in His hand, and offers to us, respectively. But when everything is trivial… maybe nothing really is. Maybe, in that final moment, the smallest things become of nearly supreme importance. After all, we’re only given so long to enjoy any of it.
I wish I could ask what you think – especially as this is now the thirty-fifth month we have been forced to be apart – but for now, all I can ask is for you to keep an eye on me, and wish me luck. I’m going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 