Death, Life and In-between

Ever have a post that has been burning in the back of your head for weeks, but you just haven't sat down to write it? 
Well, I have.  
And, now it's lost some of its freshness.  However, I need to write about it because it's important.


I'm a nurse (duh), so it may well be expected for me to see patients die.  But somehow, it still can be quite surprising and catastrophic.  I had a young patient (late 30's) who I had never met.  Upon arrival on my shift, it was quite apparent that she was beyond sick.  She had cancer.  It was everywhere.  Her devoted, gentle husband was at her bedside.


To say that her death was imminent would be accurate, but at the same time, how she happened to pass away was not peaceful.  It was graphic.  It was messy.  It was horrific.  It was devastating.  I have never seen someone pass as she did and it was scary.  Watching it was traumatizing, but I can only imagine how it must have felt for her husband to stand by and watch his much loved wife violently pass from life to death.


Death makes you think about a lot.  She was so young.  How can this happen?   How is it, that I too, will watch people I love die?  As a believer in life after death I am thankful for hope and the truth that this life is not all there is.  That even though the body is fading, the soul will never fade.  But, here's the real shocker:  what if, what if she didn't know this hope, and didn't know Christ?  What if, after enduring years of pain, suffering, and sorrow, she passes from this life to the next in trauma and violence only to find that she will now endure an eternity of suffering, separate from her creator and His love?  Now THAT is scary.  That reality is much more frightening than death itself.


A lot happened at about the same time as this work shift.  My great aunt died (I didn't actually know her) and then the next week, at my Church's weekly women's group, a hospice nurse shared about her job.  It was hugely impactful and I wanted to bawl the whole time I was listening.  As much as I hated watching this patient of mine die, as much as taking care of her life-less body was awful and, well, awkward, and as much as the reality of death is shocking and intrusive, I realize how much I love walking beside people as their loved ones pass from death to life.  Maybe that's odd, but I think that the Christ, in me, is attracted to brokenness.  He longs, through me, to touch those who suffer.  To walk with them, cry with them, hurt with them, and sorrow with them.  Maybe it's because I am all too aware of my own brokenness that Christ ministers through me this way.  I dunno.    But I feel Him most, and feel HIS satisfaction most when I am with those who suffer in this life.


I loved what the hospice nurse said: how death causes families to have to be authentic.  It causes them to need others to walk with them.  They think about things differently.  They view their own lives differently.  Conversations filled with hope and sorrow are frequent.  It made me want to be a hospice nurse.  I wonder if perhaps that is why God has allowed me to suffer in different ways in my own life.  With the shattering of my own family, with the difficulty in dealing with physical ailments, etc. 


Who knows where God will take me, but I wonder...maybe it's weird...but if I will somehow be journeying with those who are in between this life and the next.  


[Phew.  I promise the next post will be about happier, more everyday subjects like baking granola or Silas' running around the house with a hockey stick day in, day out, or maybe about how impossible making a quilt really is]