Death and Dying and the Grace to bear it

Every new encounter in life leads to new possibilities and new forks that appear in well-worn paths. Like a new spring on an old field, life continues to march on as death undoes all we love.

My grandfather passed away nearly three weeks ago. The family had been expecting it, anticipating it at times, and dreading it at others. He had a long, slow bout with an illness that made the past 26 years of his life (on the day I was born he was in surgery) move at a pace that almost would drive him into despair at times. He stayed around for many more years than any doctor expected him to with his heart working at an alarmingly low rate. In the end, the weakening of this heart, and the progress of cancer allowed my grandfather to go home sooner than we wanted, but thankfully later than we expected.

In his last days he was on large amounts of pain medication and he drifted in and out of lucidity. Synapses would fire during an ordinary conversation and he would end up talking about an event or experience years ago that he remembered. Watching the numbing of his mind was a trial, yet in his clear moments my family saw a man face death without flinching and rejoice that he would soon be in his new home.

On Thursday, October 11 2007 I walked over to my grandmother's house to say bye before running out for the afternoon and walked in on one of the greatest moments I have ever witnessed. There lay my grandfather, lips blue, eyes closed, face proud and unstrained by death. He was still warm. My grandmother cried on his neck, assuring herself that he was no longer suffering, no longer in pain, at home with Jesus and his mother and father. She left the room and this gave me opportunity to be alone with a shell; a dignified shell looking like a statue. No longer contorted, restless, and asleep in an induced medicinal haze, but his body was relaxed and calm and proud. Proud to have encased a man for 80 years who lived such. Proud to cool and decompose and lie until that day when it will be reanimated incorruptible. All I could say to this shell, to this man now at home, was "Thank You."

I am grateful for many things in life that have aided me, and there are other things I wish I could have done without. But in a convoluted sense, here hurt meets grace and leaves me nothing but thankful. I am thankful for a father that left me, so that I could learn from my grandfather something I would never have learned from my father had he been there: something taught to me by a man with a weak heart for as long as I'd known him. I cannot define it with words but I see it in every field, on every tree; it is something that has seeped into my bones. I have learned how to live from watching a man die. Death is a great teacher of things eternal, through grace. I have seen Christ conquer yet again, and turn the agony of loss into the prize of gain. I am thankful, just thankful. Hurt? Yes. Despairing? No. We rejoice for the memories of my grandfather and await that Day, when he will work to the glory of God again. From now on, a grave in the defunct farming community of Union, Florida has a special place in my heart. There lies the reminder of human weakness, and through grace the reminder of godly strength. There Christ has redeemed a soul, and will one day redeem a body, and has already through my grandfather's life and death redeemed something in me.