Tuesday, April 7, 2015

I'll tell you all about it when I see you again

It's been a long day,
without you my friend
and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.
We've come a long away from where we began
and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again...

Last week I attended a funeral. I hadn't done that in a while. It was the joyful event I pray my own funeral will be. It got me thinking, as most things do. We flew away at the end with robust music that screamed to my heart to pump again.

I went to a movie Saturday, which I hadn't done in months. I saw Furious 7, a hilariously impractically plotted action flick. I hadn't seen any of the previous Furious movies, by the way. At the end of the film is a tribute to actor Paul Walker, who died in an automobile wreck while on a break from filming this movie. I cried when a song at the end of the movie began to play called I'll see you again done by two singers/rappers I had never heard of. Just too much to know this person was a father and had so much to live for at the tender age of 40.

Then Easter Sunday reminded me so much of the fact death is not the end. Never the end. There is much more than this train wreck of a life I've lived before Christ and this stop and start faith I've clawed and most assuredly clung to over these decades.

I have spent the better part of three weeks waiting, waiting for God to move us, literally, waiting for Logan, our 15-year-old terrier mix to get better and watching her very slowly fail despite our very best efforts to comfort her.

I've seen my inability to wait gracefully and peacefully be reinforced and confirmed.

Logan's health is a window into the world, I think. Just over two months ago she was doing rather well. Then a busted ear led to other surgeries which led to some sort of neck problem which led to some sort of spine problem and she's just not herself, so much so that the Dr. Jackson, her vet, has said that she's sort of on hospice care. We will have a decision to make at some point, we're told.

That leads me to think very carefully about my next words, tired though I am because in part I can't sleep well due to the impending decisions on our lives that must be made by others and by ourselves.

Logan is old. She's given all she had to us, forever. She has lived with us in five houses, five. She came to us when our girls, who have children of their own, were teenagers. She's seen a pack of animals come and some go over the years. She's been the glue in our hobby lobby.

She, like me, has seen perhaps the best of ourselves come and go. Neither one of us gets around like we once did, she so pure in spirit and speed and me so, uh, well, I once could move a little. She, like me, has back issues. She, like me, is being given Gabapentin for nerve pain. She, like me, has worsening hearing and seeing and unlike me she has all her hair. Unlike me, however, no one is wondering if I can continue to take the pain or need to be considering something else. At least I don't think that's the case with me.

Truth is, I wonder about death myself from time to time. I'm only six years from being the age my father was when he died. I think about that a lot. Ironically, I believe I'm six years from the age I want to retire from the ministry at. Might be the ultimate retirement plan, there.

Writer Ellen Goodman says this, "Introducing end-of-life conversations seem particularly difficult, seeing as people often don't like to think about dying. Can we change that attitude or do you think only certain people are receptive to starting these talks?

"Considering the fact that 100 percent of us will die, we clearly will all face death at some point. Yet, we often act as if this is not the case. As if death, though natural and a part of life, is not natural at all. But we are seeing Americans are much more ready to have these conversations that ever before."

Truth is, I am not fearful of my own death, only of not dying before my wife, because I believe I will live again. Death has no sting on me. I will, I believe, live again and will see my family again.

But I'd miss Saints football games (yeah, even those that, er, kill me). I'd miss my children and grand children's smiles and foibles and laughter. I'd miss my dear wife, Mary. I'd miss our pack of beasts who have kept me alive over the years even as they inevitably passed.

See, to care about someone passing is to care about them being alive. I love family, friends, even the squirrels outside my window right now playing in a tree we will soon say goodbye to. And if God decides, for I cannot I fear, that Logan has served her time well, we will I pray be strong enough for her to help her in any way we need to.

God is good. Time is slow. Waiting is atrocious. That's me in a nutshell.


Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'til the landslide brought it down
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is Love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing' ocean tide?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Time makes us bolder, even children get older
and I'm getting older too...

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