Tag: death’s lessons

Death – Our Uninvited Teacher

Featured by Linda Russell, posted in AHA moments, Boldness in adversity, Consider trials pure joy!, death's lessons, Good Friday

Death doesn’t care if you have unfinished business

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I wrote the following Blog post on 4/2/2021 (Good Friday), having no idea that my husband would pass away just fifteen days later.  The words are now more poignant than ever.  I have added my thoughts since his passing at the end.

Every death diminishes me

Every Good Friday, we are called to remember the brutal beating and crucifixion of Jesus.  He walked in the midst of those deemed lesser and unimportant.  They experienced his love and compassion for them.  But he walked a lonely road to his death.  Sure, a few dared to walk with him (ahem…the women!).  But many, his disciples, in particular, scattered for their own safety, feeling powerless to stop it from happening.

Also, we are reliving the horrific facts of George Floyd’s death during Derek Chauvin’s trial.  Hearing the witnesses’ testimony as they broke down and grieved over watching Floyd die has been excruciating for many.  Most of the witnesses were strangers to him, yet they all spoke of feeling helpless and guilty that they didn’t try to help him.  Even though they also knew they were powerless to do so.

Jesus was innocent of any crime.  George Floyd was not.  But the fact remains that neither deserved to die so violently at the hands of others.

So I sit and contemplate how their deaths have impacted me.  As a professed Christian, I am called to emulate Jesus’ radical love in every aspect of my life.  I mostly fail, but I keep trying and longing to be more like him in how I live my life.

And George Floyd?  I didn’t know him and likely never would have, nor would most of us, if not for witnessing his horrifying death on the daily news.

In those beautiful and poignant words of John Donne, “No man is an island; entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind.”

That is a fact of God’s making.  We are all interconnected – like it or not.  The death of another, be it a loved one or a stranger, should call us to stop and take inventory of our own lives.  Every funeral I attend does that for me and often shines a light on my failings to be Christ-like to others.  Thankfully, every day is a new day – a day to begin again.

Wake up!

So, here’s what I will be contemplating and praying about today and hopefully be acting on daily.  It doesn’t have to be Jesus who calls us to be better, kinder, softer, to live and love more fully.  It can also be the death of a stranger we have never met that wakes us from sleepwalking through life.

Facing the realization that we will also die (sorry if that’s news to you) – maybe sooner than later (sorry again) – should cause us to ask ourselves if our houses are in order and, more importantly, what we are leaving behind because…

Death doesn’t care

Death does not care if we have left business unfinished, relationships broken, or children to be raised.  It doesn’t matter if we are not ready or sit on promises to change. It will take the weak with the strong, the humble with the proud, the saint with the jerk.

Death doesn’t respect wedding plans, vacation plans, or unmet deadlines.  It does not operate by a timetable we set and is no respecter of age.  It does not discriminate between the most loved or most hated.  It may not wait for the most brilliant to cure cancer, bring peace to a troubled nation, or receive a Nobel Prize.

Denying that death is a part of life doesn’t change its reality.  We can’t rely on death to come when we are ready.  But we can depend on it to teach those of us who are willing how to truly live.

Death can and should be a time of reflection

Have I lived well, loved well, forgiven — honestly – and sought forgiveness humbly?

For good or bad, I have touched the lives of family and friends, the mailman, and the grumpy receptionist at the doctor’s office.  I may have amassed wealth and recognition and left a fortune to my loved ones.  All things they can pack away, gamble away, or throw away.  But, at the end of the day…what have I left in their hearts?

So now

As I contemplate the reality that my life has changed drastically, my beliefs have not.

The suddenness of my husband’s death has not made me fearful or anxious, as I know God’s love and care for me have always been steady and unchanging, even when I have so often failed to appreciate it.  But, at the same time, it drives home the fact that my own life is not guaranteed beyond this moment.  So, what does that mean?

My life is filled with many moments of disbelief that my husband is actually gone.  I’m sure that will continue for some time.  But, in the midst of that, as I daily make decisions about how I am to “live and move and have my being” (Acts 17:28) – I am discovering my better self, my true self, not the self on display when others are watching.

I am asking critical questions that will surely determine my life’s direction, purpose, and focus for whatever time I have left here.  How will/should I live my life moving forward?  What do I want my loved ones to remember about me?

God longs for us to use the gifts he has given us to leave the world better than we found it.  How will I do that?  How will I serve in this time of such need and suffering?  Every moment of every day allows us to grow in love and compassion for all those we encounter on this journey.

There truly are gifts in the midst of our goodbyes.  What do I want mine to be?  What do you want yours to be?

Waiting for Tomorrow Are Ya’?

by Linda Russell, posted in AHA moments, death's lessons, life is short, Life's Choices, Oh death where is your sting?

(Originally posted 8/08/2012)

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Some day you’re going to apologize to your neighbor (who hates you, by the way) for backing over his cat and blaming it on the mail carrier.

Some day your humdrum existence will magically transform into the fairy tale life you have always dreamed of.

Some day you will hit the lottery and buy your neighbor a new cat. Okay, you won’t do that because you’ll move to a deserted island where you won’t have any neighbors.

If you believe one morning you’ll wake up, and your butt will have fallen off as you slept – that’s right – you’re delusional. (You might want to lay off the chocolate darlin’)

Wanna know where I’m at as I write this and why my thoughts went where they did? I am sitting with a dying hospice patient. I’ll call him Fred. I can’t show you a picture of him for obvious reasons, but I can show you a picture of the wall I’m staring at in his room. It’s 2:30 am, and I have been staring at this wall for two hours.

Fred has little family, and no one visits him. He was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s disease when I first met him, so we were never able to communicate. I have no idea what he did for a living, but for now, he is my teacher, like all the patients I see.

I know what you’re thinking. How could someone who has lost the ability to respond to their environment or converse with anyone teach you anything? How could they impart words of wisdom like Mahatma Gandhi, shine a light on injustice like Martin Luther King, and inspire Jesus’ call to “serve the least of these” like Mother Theresa? Well, they can’t….

They can sometimes do more – at least for me – at this moment.

When I meet a new patient, I first look at the pictures in their room. Some, like my dear mother-in-law, have their walls and shelves cluttered with family pictures. They make for great conversation. But here’s my buddy Fred with four blank walls.

What am I supposed to do with that? I have discovered that that is the wrong question. The real question is – what is God wanting to teach me here?

It is no coincidence that at this very time, I am reading a most profound book by Kathleen Dowling Singh, “The Grace in Dying”.

So, what am I finally learning at this late stage in my life? What I have grown to believe from Gandhi, King, and Mother Theresa, has been personified by Singh and Fred.

Singh’s book moves from words on a page to experience that reaches the depth of my heart as I sit here with a dying man. I have grown to appreciate that this is Holy Ground and that God is truly present here.

I sense that God is trying to tell me during these times to review my own life. He calls out to anyone with ears to hear, “You’re gonna die too. Maybe even today. So, get your act together!”

Because I have a warped brain (DUH! Surely you know that by now), I had to laugh because that reminder sent me to this cartoon.

At this stage in life, considering priorities is surely in order, don’t you think? Can we stop obsessing over things that don’t…actually, never did...matter? Stop dwelling on old hurts, lost opportunities, and someone else’s expectations? Stop striving for more and more of what someone else will trash before you’re cold in your grave? Stop trying to control everything? Stop shadowboxing? Donate those skinny jeans that will likely NEVER fit you again (geeezzzzz)?

Singh tells us, “When we are deeply aware of our own impermanence, every fleeting moment is recognized as precious. Our desire to be present in each moment amplifies. Meditating on death instantly calls us to question on the deepest of levels. What am I doing? What do I want? What does this all mean? Contemplating our own mortality…our precariously impermanent existence can call us to complete and thorough accountability. It can call us to instant reordering, a rearranging of our priorities and our intentions. It blocks off all of our habitual detours into denial.”

The bare walls in Fred’s room don’t tell me anything about Fred, but they signify two realities for me: (1) To ask honestly if my life has been empty and void of significance. (2) God always offers us a clean slate – to begin again if I have failed to fulfill my purpose.

Thank you, Fred. In your dying, you are teaching me how to truly live while there is still breath in me.

Now, go in peace…I pray…into the hands of our loving and merciful God.