A taste of the joy

"I rejoiced when they said to me, 'Let us go to the house of the LORD.'" -- Psalm 122:1 (NAB)

Deaths in my life seem to go in surges, and October saw one of those surges. On October 5, the 12-year-old granddaughter of one of our deacons died following a three-year battle with cancer. The day of her funeral, a 23-year-old young adult in our parish was found dead in his trailer of apparent accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. The 60-year-old wife of a local pastor then died unexpectedly less than a week later.

Experiencing a series of deaths, especially deaths that come suddenly or unexpectedly, can serve as an important reminder of how fragile life is and that we "do not know the day or the hour" when the Lord will come for us (Mt. 25:13). But it can also serve to remind us that there is something much better waiting for those who love God, something that we sometimes get a little taste of when someone close to us dies.

A number of years ago, an elderly friend of mine died of liver cancer. She had never married and had outlived all her immediate family, so I was one of the people closest to her. As a result, I had the privilege of walking with her on her journey from the time she was first diagnosed until she went to be with the Lord 17 months later. 

I had had other elderly friends who had died, but I had never been with them at the moment of their passing. In this case, though, I really wanted to be there for her, so I asked the Lord, if it was His will, to give me the grace of being present at her death.

She was staying in a nursing home under hospice care. It became clear in the last few days of her life that her body was starting to shut down. I was blessed to be able to take a couple of days off work so that I could be with her. The nursing home staff put a large recliner next to her bed so that I could stay with her.

I was sleeping in the recliner when around 2:30 in the morning I awoke to see her roommate, who had dementia, standing beside my friend's bed, gently tucking her in. I thought, "Isn't that sweet," and was about to go back to sleep when the roommate went to her closet and started getting dressed. (It's not unusual for those with dementia to become active at night.) I thought, "Uh-oh, the aide will want to know this," so I got up and found her. After several minutes of coaxing, she convinced the roommate to go back to bed.

By this time, I was wide awake, so I decided to read to my friend from the Bible. I knew that she looked like she was asleep, but I've often heard that a person's hearing is the last sense to go, so I wanted to read to her from Scripture. After reading several other passages, I decided to read the psalms known as the "songs of ascent." These are the psalms that the Israelites prayed aloud as they climbed up the mountain on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

I got to Psalm 122 and started to read it:

I rejoiced when they said to me,

“Let us go to the house of the LORD.”

And now our feet are standing

within your gates, Jerusalem.

As I said, "Jerusalem," my friend quietly stopped breathing. I paused and waited to see if she was going to go into a cycle of breaths with long pauses in between, as cancer patients sometimes do. A few seconds later, though, the artery in her neck stopped pulsating. It was all so peaceful and at the same time unexpected that I actually said out loud, "I think you just died!" It was as if one moment, she had been standing at the gates of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the next moment, she had stepped through to the other side.

It's hard to describe what I experienced at that moment. Physically, I was exhausted; emotionally, I was numb. Spiritually, though, I was on the ceiling! It was as if, in that brief moment that the gates had opened for her, a breeze, laden with the joy of the other side, had blown back through to me and given me a very small, swift taste of what she was walking into.

As I considered the three people who died in October and their loved ones mourning their loss, I asked the Lord to let those left behind catch just a bit of that same back draft of heavenly joy.

Something new

"See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"--Isaiah 43:19b

Today is the 9th anniversary of the death of a wonderful lady in our parish named Maxine. At least, that's what her holy card says. But June 13 was simply the day that her good friend Ann found her body, sitting in her chair with her feet propped up, facing the TV which was tuned to EWTN, just as she had been when she had her heart attack. All the evidence, though, points to her really dying on Pentecost evening, June 8.

Maxine was a wonderful woman, filled with the joy of the Lord and His Spirit. She had spent many years as a medical missionary nurse in Africa. In fact, one of the Ugandan priests in our area was born at a hospital where she was serving in the maternity ward. He was amazed to learn that because, as he later told us, he had always had a feeling that he knew her from somewhere. :)

By the time I got to know her, she was already retired, but remained very active in her retirement, serving in various ways. She was also active in our Carmelite group. In fact, she and I made our definitive promises on the same day.

But what I'll always remember most about Maxine is what happened that last Pentecost weekend. We were offering several opportunities for people to be prayed with that weekend. On Friday night, Maxine came to my partner and I for prayer. She said that the Lord had told her that He was getting ready to do "something new" with her, and she was so excited that God had something new for her! She couldn't wait to see what this new thing of God would be. So we prayed with her for this "something new" coming in her life, whatever it might be. On Pentecost Sunday morning, she stopped by the prayer ministers for prayer again, and I got to pray with her a second time.

Imagine my shock a few days later when I learned that she had died! But in the days and months and years since then, I have often reflected on what the Lord had said to her. From the Lord's perspective, the death of His faithful ones is simply "something new," a new phase in their eternal relationship of love with Him. Maxine didn't need to know exactly what the new thing was. It was enough to know that it was coming from the hand of her loving Father, and like a trusting little child, she looked forward to it with great excitement and joy.

Dear Father, thank You for Maxine and for allowing me the opportunity to get a glimpse through her into Your perspective on death. Whenever my time comes to approach death, help me to remember that it is simply "something new" in our relationship and to approach it with the same trust, excitement, and joy that she did. Amen.