The Sick, Dead, and Dying

This is a post which I have adapted/ added to which I never completed last summer after visiting my Opa. It has some bits which aren't true to timing, but I've chosen to leave them. The original title was Realities...you'll see why.

Reality number one, summer is over.
Reality number two, school is starting.
Reality number three, all good things on earth must come to an end.
Reality number four, this post is late.

The Sick
My house, as you might know from last week, has become a hospital for sick cats. Fred and George decided to get sick within a few days of each other. Now they are both home and steadily recovering. George you might never have known was sick. Differences as a result of this drama include diet changes, and for now at least, a pill. Each cat has successfully claimed their own personal food needs. So now Lily eats with George downstairs, Lily eats the boring dry food and George gets spoiled with a scoop of prescribed dry and a little wet. Meanwhile upstairs Fred is scarfing down chicken. The twins are on the same medication for swollen bowls and they are both due for a follow up appointment sometime in the next week or two. The ordeal has reminded me how much we take health for granted. Life is so temporary. A seemingly healthy cat one day might be dying the next. I'd like to note that the sick stage is hardest for me. I don't like others to be in pain. The uncertainty of of whether it is goodbye or if a cure is possible is something that haunts me.

The Dead
I don't often contemplate death even knowing it could happen at any minute. Lately however, with three Old relatives, one of whom might not be far off, I've had to. I have been to more funerals in my life than weddings. Two of those I supplied the music for. Four of them were for relatives. Causes have been old age ailments, cancer, and suicide. Just this week I attended a service for Elizabeth Elliot, an incredible woman whose husband and his group of friends were killed by a tribe they were bringing the gospel to. Elizabeth and her daughter then lived with that very same tribe for many years afterword. This particular service was good. Many friends, and relatives spoke of their memories. Joni Eareckson Tada was the big speaker which I didn't know until I was there. In general, I don't know what I think about funerals and burials. Perhaps it seems as if too much emphasis is put into holding on to those passed. I mentioned that I handle sickness worse than death, at least I think I do. At funerals, and I am including those for whom I was directly related, I cannot cry. Perhaps I am cold and unfeeling but I can recall sitting in services among other mourners who were weeping their eyes out and I could not summon a tear. Does this make me a horrible person? You could excuse me for being young at the time, but I do not think that children feel things any less strongly than adults. This was all merely an aside, I am not going to linger on the subject.

The Dying
I have been off in the far flung corners of the states, soaking up the last bit of freedom and sunshine. Along with that, I have been visiting with the Old, and with that came the awful realisation that no matter how great you live your life, we will nearly all leave this world as pitiful and clueless as we came into it. Needing help possibly even more. So small, forgetful, and broken. The Old are simply little wisps, hovering around, worrying about what they cannot control and wondering what they are forgetting.

I am reminded of a quote by T.S. Elliot which says,
"Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways."*

I'm not sure exactly what it means, but it sounds creepy and expresses how death is unavoidable. Another quote goes,
"A man may walk with a lamp at night, and yet drown in a ditch."

No matter if you follow the most regimented workout schedule and eat super healthy. No matter if you work from home and never drive a car. No matter if you spend your entire life holed up in an empty room and have your food delivered to you through a cat door, death will find you. It's like Sleeping Beauty who, threatened with the curse of 100 years of sleep if pricked by a spindle, took precautions to banish every sharp object from the kingdom. Of course, one little slipup is what got her in the end. But who would want to live with that kind of fear and never take risks? It's like that proverb about the fool who says he won't go outside because there might be a lion in the road. Well you might also have a heart attack. Or be bitten by a disease carrying insect. The what-ifs are endless.

I just finished reading a book by Madeleine L'Engle called Summer of The Great-Grandmother. It was very good and I'd recommend it to anyone because at some point almost every person has or will have to deal with an aging parent. It helped me know how to handle my grandma when she asks who I am, or when she points at the tv commercial and says something big is going to happen. Or asks where I live for the 100th time. She can't help it. Doesn't know she's doing anything out of the ordinary. It scares me though, when I can't get myself to laugh it off. Will mother be like that? Will I?

"We have gone on living,
Living and partly living."

Being Old just doesn't seem like there is much life left enough to live. A shriveled shell which is susceptible to viruses, cuts, and diseases. They must be careful whatever they do. Their schedules involve menial tasks which they spend hours on when in reality it should take minutes. When they go places they must hurry not to be late and then hurry home so they can do nothing.

"I am not in danger: only near to death."

I would like to point out that dying isn't something God designed when he created the world. It came as a result of sin. Still, if you know where you're going, it isn't something to fear because glory is on the other side. As Revelation 21:4 puts it,
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever."

Okay, enough on that. I'll end by writing briefly about something we don't usually associate with death: babies. They signify more like new life, right? So a day or so after I got home from the trip, I got a call asking if I could watch a 14 week old baby while the granny was away. This is new...and only a month after being asked about watching an almost newborn! That's the third one this year. Who decided I would be good with babies? I agreed, and have become officially impressed and empathetic for mamas with little babies. I babysat this kid for ten days, 8 and a half hours per day. That felt like a looong time. I think a full time job is something like 40 hours a week. I was doing 42 and a half. But I can't imagine what 24 hours seven days a week would be like. Add on a couple more young children who can crawl and walk? Ahhhhh! I'm pretty sure I am going to be having nightmares about crying babies for at least a week.

I'm going to stop now because, and here's a last quote,
"Human kind cannot bear very much reality."

*all quotes from today's post unless otherwise noted are from Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Elliot