Life and Death, Honor and Glory

Today marks another sad day in the life of our home and school communities. We lost another of our colleagues. This year has been a difficult one.


Death has a way of making me reflect on life. When my father died, I was a child just 6 years old. I remember feeling as if I wouldn’t, couldn’t ever possibly understand why he was gone. Where did he go? Why didn’t he come back home? How would I spend my whole life not having him with me? I felt as if my heart was ripped free of my young body. The pain of that loss remains part of me still.

Later I discovered, he was not my biological father. It didn’t remove the pain, in fact, it added to my suffering. I then had to take in a new father. Feelings of betrayal spun with the feelings of loss. Could I love this new father? Would he be there for me? When would he die and leave me? Did loving him diminish the love I felt for my Daddy? It was not a long time until I discovered, you could grow to love a new person and mourn his loss as well. My father died when I was home from college my freshman year. Anger was the emotion I embraced…railing at God. How dare he take another man I loved out of my life? It was not fair; I had so little, why did he have to punish me in this way. I wanted to make it right, bring him back. There was no peace in my heart.

Later during that same year, a dear friend went home over the Easter break. He did not return, and it was during a class we learned that Pierre decided to take his life. He faced what he saw as a hopeless situation. Those same feelings of anger, loss, hopelessness, and fear boiled to the surface. How dare he do that to us? What gave him the right to take his life? Didn’t he know he was hurting us?

Life went on with its expected ups and downs. I continued to lose family members to this evil - death. Each one impacted me less and less. I sat at open caskets staring at the lifeless bodies of the people who once brimmed over with life, and humor. Tears stopped flowing and my anger waged at this death became complacency. Where did they go? Would I ever know their laughter again? Pervasive feelings of helplessness washed over me with each loss…but each hurt less. It is true that we can get numb to the worst things life has to offer.

After most of my family was gone, I began losing important in-laws; first Nana, then my wonderful father-in-law, Orion, Great Pop, and finally Uncle Jim. Each was a deeply felt loss, because each person brought something uniquely wonderful to life and was cherished in their own way. I stopped railing at God. It seemed like everywhere around me, death was winning the battle with life. It became expected, sad, but a part of the greater scheme of things in this life we are given.

Amidst all this loss, I dealt with perhaps the most difficult loss of all. It was my mother’s death that was the most profound in my life. We had shared a very rocky past. There was abuse resulting in hatred, and fortunately forgiveness which led to friendship. In our relationship, we grew as a result of new life, my twins. I could see my mother much more clearly through my eyes as a mother. She supported me through a period when I truly needed her. I learned that people never seek to harm, although it sometimes happens. It is often not their intention to destroy, although that is sometimes the result. I was blessed to have come to terms with our past before our future was cut short, again by the inevitability of death. My mother spent a year courageously battling lung cancer. She had a reason to live...her grandchildren and the love she found in them and for them. Enduring months of chemotherapy and radiation, a full surgery opening her stomach from chest to groin, Mom demonstrated almost super human courage and determination to life. She was fighting the good fight with this enemy death and was winning. When declared cancer free, we celebrated her return to her apartment and the life she had always led…independent and free. After all the battling she had gone through, death was not done with her and sent an ally to consume her and snuff out her bright light. Mom caught a cold just after Christmas. It turned quickly into pneumonia with her weakened lungs. She wanted no extraordinary measures to keep her alive, although if she could fight, she would. Given the fact that she was now a grandmother…a very coveted position…she agreed to have a ventilator to buy her some time in almost an overtime herculean attempt at a win. After seemingly good days, she experienced a bleed which signaled that death was in fact winning this battle too. I communicated the news to her from the doctors that she was not going to recover, that her time to fight was over, and that she needed to relax and welcome what was to be her journey on from this life. I was suffering the news, while Mom sat very calmly in acceptance of her fate. I bathed her. I caressed her hands and feet with lotion. I cried into her arm and I sat next to her holding her hand. It was a snowy Thursday night in January. The storm was going to grant us a snow day off school. I said, “I’ll come down tomorrow and be with you, Mom.”

She vehemently shook her head. Indicating the tablet and pen, she wrote that I needed to remain with my babies. They needed me. She was fine. Call if I needed to and do not worry. I left the hospital that night numb, helpless, so incredibly sad, and with knowledge in my heart that it was to be the last time I saw my mother alive. The next day, we did in fact not have school. I debated going to her, but knew that her words were wise. I left her the night before sitting up in her bed, knees bent…feet close to her bottom, with elbows on her knees looking like she was at the beach waiting to watch the waves roll in. I thought how peaceful she is...just waiting, knowing, and really ok with what was going to happen to her. With one last smile, I left my courageous Mother to engage in her last battle with death, with both of us knowing that this time, death would win.

As I reflect on the death of my colleague, I am touched by her courageous fight. Like my mother, she fought the good fight. She was determined to beat this enemy. In losses such as these, we all seek to find a positive. In my friend’s death and in my mother’s too, they both lived until they died…never giving in or giving up. I learn all the time that death is only sad for those of us left behind. It is understandable that we will miss those people we love. It is OUR grief. Death is the ultimate in terms of inevitable. The lesson I’ve come to learn that it is not about how we die, but how we choose to live that is important. These lessons are all around us. Do we give in to the negatives in our life, or do we seek to understand and forgive. Do we fold under pressure, or fortify ourselves with the love of friends and family so that we have the courage to fight our battles through this life.

Today, I experience sadness, but I know it is for me. I will miss my friend…and her bright light in all our lives. I grieve for her family, who has suffered so many losses of late. At the same time, I am learning about courage, determination, and fortitude. I am blessed to be able to have had my background of loss which allows me the numbness to stand back far enough to be able to see the beauty left behind after someone you love leaves you. Perhaps this is only my understanding, but I’m grateful for it. I thank God for the time I shared with each person I’ve lost. They were all special and unique and left deep impressions on my heart, a phrase I borrow from a dear friend of mine who knows this battle and who has fought with courage and a bit of luck. We never know what God’s plan is for us, but we must embrace what we do with this gift of life he gave each of us.

Debbie 1-13-10