free to be

When I read a story, I like for it to come full circle. I love symmetry; a good lesson threaded throughout; closure; the satisfactory exhale.

At work on Friday, a few of us were talking before going our separate ways for the day. We were having a heart to heart, on our feet, in the middle of the office. Mostly, we were replaying some events that had taken place during some of our visits the day before. As we shared, I noticed that I was having a hard time putting my experience into words. My sentences would trail off into unfinished thoughts. Someone was always there to pick up where I left off-morphing our individual experiences into something we could all collectively understand. Our disjointed conversation took us in and out of various homes. It was obvious to me, as I fumbled for my words, that I was still trying to figure out why I had a need to share-not fully understanding what it was about this one particular visit that had me still 'lingering'.

Because I like stories that come full circle, it's hard for me to write (or talk) about things that may ultimately feel unfinished. I'd like to package my thoughts up nicely-with the ah-ha, 'thanks for reading', moment at the end but I'm afraid this time, I've got nothing. :) So, this is my disclaimer for those that may be along for the ride. This story is what it is; an unfinished thought-a reflection.



Thursday
I walked in and made my way down the hallway, announcing myself as I went along. Normally the home is busy with activity, & the patient rests quietly while those around her do the talking. She smiles; she tells us she’s coping well; she denies pain. Today, she was alone in her bedroom, tucked away on the backside of the house.

I wasn’t even through the doorway of her room and already I could tell the pace and tone with which she was calling to me was desperate and sad. She told me she’d had a rough morning. She tried to nonchalantly nod off her tears as ‘a little spell’ but the tears kept coming.

I crawled onto the bed beside her. She continued to speak, and the tears fell one after another. Her words literally poured from her, filling the room. She clung to my hands. It felt so desperate—her mannerisms; the language and the emotion.

She doesn’t want to die but she knows that she is.
Her daughters keep talking as if she’s going to get better so she smiles and fights for each day and then feels like a failure when she just can’t ‘go’ anymore. She’s scared; for her and for them. She believes, but now when she needs to feel Him most, she feels beyond His grasp-outside His love; abandoned and terrified. ‘Why wont He save me?’

It’s a surreal experience to watch someone desperately cry out to God, ‘Save me’, as death lingers at the doorway. In my two years with hospice, every single time I’ve heard a patient cry those words out to God, the patient has died. Not one, has been ‘saved’.

I think about that as I watch her cry, wishing I could say the things she wants me to. I can’t tell her that I think she’ll get better. I don’t even like to talk about physical healing with our patients anymore-in fact, as she references these very things I feel everything alarm inside me. I know that although He is able to deliver her from this disease, it will likely play out as it has in every home I’ve been in before. One day, and probably soon, no matter how hard she fights against it, she’ll close her eyes and take that last breath.

have I become a skeptic? It's really not a faith issue. The alarms that go off inside me are not so much related to believing God is able but out of a deep and genuine concern that the person will not make the most of the time he or she has left. In these homes where the mantra is "I will get better", families tip toe around the disease, things that need to be said become regrets, and healing on every other level is dwarfed.

I asked her if I could pray with her and she looked at me, startled. Still weeping, she said, “You’ll pray for…me? I didn’t know you could do that.” I explained it’s one of our favorite things to do. And so we prayed. We breathed Him in.

He hears her. I know that He does. That’s the only reason I can bear to see her tears. It's breaking His heart too. Watching her cry and plead leaves this knot of nausea in my stomach--because I know she's scared and I wish we could make it less so. I want her to feel Him in the dark. I believe that today, in this home, on this bed, He’s there, holding her hand. He sees why all of this is necessary; and I would imagine, her tears shine fresh in His eyes.

It was the same in the garden & on the cross. The desperate pleas, the piercing cry:
“Father, all things are possible for you; remove this cup for Me, yet not my will but yours be done”. And then from the cross, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

If anyone understands, He does.
at the end of the day, in all of those bedrooms, that's all I want each patient to know.
it's okay to rest; to say good-bye; to cry.
The miracle has already been done.