I want to be a burden to my children...

I know it sounds a little crazy to want to be a burden to our children (grandchildren, friends, etc.)! This is a topic Hartley and I have talked about for years! We started this conversation when Hartley was in school at Duke, studying under Stanley Hauerwas. Dr. Hauerwas taught about death and dying in one of Hartley's classes and it went something like this;

• We need to be taught how to die
• Dying in your sleep without pain or the realization that you are dying is not a blessing
• Depending on a faith community of friends and family to walk with you through the process is a blessing (even if it means "being a burden")
• "It is a gift to live into your dying"
• Presence and prayer bring comfort and help alleviate fear.
• To learn how to die we must see someone die well.
• In The Book of Common Prayer in the Great Litany, there’s the prayer, “save me from all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared.” In the Middle Ages, what people feared was not death, they feared God. They prayed to be saved from a sudden death because they wanted to have time to repent and have their lives appropriately positioned to face God. Now we just fear death.
• "Friendship with God is the good that should form both how we live and how we die. When we learn how to be friends with God we learn something about what it means to die well."

Now that you have that taste of "learning to die well" I'd like to share with you a story about my mom and her death.

Momma told me, and everyone around her. that she would never ever be a burden to anyone and also said," I'll go out behind the barn and shoot myself before I will be a burden."!
Thankfully, we didn't have a barn when Mother began to have declining health!
My Momma was a very strong and independent woman never wanting to owe anyone anything. (She didn't mind other people owing her though)
She was a self made woman, owning numerous businesses.  Her last business was a diner/tea room with her sister, when she was 80!
Momma had a series of illnesses and complications plus the fact that she was legally blind. But she still wanted to drive, so I would take her to Wal-Mart so she could drive the motorized shopping carts!
Momma began having hallucinations (visions as she called them) and major paranoid phobias.
After numerous hospitalizations a decision had to be made, nursing home or our house. Momma accepted our house. Remember, this is the woman that didn't want to be a burden to anyone and now she is finding herself in a place of dependence on me, Hartley and our children. This was a big dose of pride she had to swallow!
We added a toilet and sink in our little spare bedroom,brought in a twin bed in place of the double bed and wallah Momma's space was ready before she got out of the hospital.
Hartley and I took turns with a paid caregiver during the day and it worked out well.
Momma took a sharp turn for the worse, about a month after she moved in with us, so back to the hospital (don't get me started on that). After 10 days of staying with her day and night so she got the proper care I asked a doctor directly "Is my Mother dying?" He hesitantly replied, "yes."  He said it was a "failure to thrive". My reaction was,"why the hell are we still here, call hospice! I am taking her home!"
Hospice beat us to the house! The hospital bed was in place and a nurse was ready to teach Hartley and I how to take care of Momma's physical and medical needs.
Before Anna, our hospice nurse, left I began to cry. "I can't do this! I can't do this!" It was like going home from the hospital with your first baby, there wasn't a manual for this. Anna hugged me and said she was just a phone call away and yes, you can do this.
I think this is when the above "bullet points" kicked in.
I stayed by Momma's side most of the day and all of the night. I sang to her, read to her and constantly held her hand. One time she squeezed my hand and said "enough singing"! Another time my brother, Coy, and Hartley were turning her for a suppository when she perked up and said, "I'm gonna poot on you". They both died laughing!  I must say, Hartley was Momma's Prince! He did all the lifting, shots. suppositories, and clean up. (especially when my gag reflexes were working overtime)  He was my hero through it all as well!
We continued having our regular weekly "life group" meetings and everyone would go in and pray for her or just touch her hand. When it was time for "communion" to be taken, someone from the group would go in and serve Momma. The last morsel of food she took in was "the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Most of Momma's friends and all of her family had made it in to see her.  Leaving her with a blessing and taking a blessing back with them.
Time was coming to an end, as we know it, for Momma. We called in our children and community of faith to pray the prayer service for the dying from The Book of Common Prayer. There were about 20 of us there including momma's sister and 2 nieces. It was truly a glorious moment, the Spirit of God was so beautifully evident in that sacred space. After the prayer service everyone filed out after leaving momma with a kiss or a touch, to a meal we had prepared for them.  We spent the evening telling stories while we ate, laughed and cried.
The house, now empty and quiet, as I sat with momma a few more days until she took her final breath and made the journey to her heavenly home.
I feel like momma died perfectly. And it made such an impact on so many people, young and old, that participated in her death journey.
It was 7 years, June 18th, that momma died but I remember it like yesterday. Often when I receive communion I remember for her it was the last taste she experienced before meeting "The One" face to face that had provided that sacrament for her.
Momma's death journey obviously is not the only way to die, but when it is possible, try to allow your loved ones to be a burden on you. It is truly a life changing event, that will live with you until it's your time to be a "blessed burden".
We do not know how or when a friend or a loved one will make the journey of death, so let's try to love them really well so we don't have any regrets when that time arrives.
Peace, till we visit again! Remember life's full of wonderful adventures awaiting and death happens to be one of them.
I want to take this space to say thank you to Dr. Stanley Hauerwas for all he taught Hartley and vicariously taught me. Thank you Dr. Hauerwas!

Loss

I am thinking a lot about loss today.  Not a real happy train of thought but sometimes a necessary one because none of us escapes losses.  My precious husband has a dear friend and past employer that has just experienced the death of his  his only son, Walt, at the age of 33; the autopsy said Walt had died of a massive heart attack.  I want to share a portion of a letter Hartley sent to his friend.

"Grief comes in numerous packages and it is often
masked by anger toward the only one who could have done something to
prevent your tragedy, God. It's okay to tell him just how mad you are;
He's big enough to take a frontal assault and gracious enough to
recognize it is the product of a pain for which there are no adequate
answers to the question, "Why?"

As Christians I suppose the only redemptive thing to look for in such
an event is the recollection that ultimately our hope is not here; it's
not in material well being and the illusion of security it gives, not
in our plans for the future, and not even in our children, despite the
emotional and material investment they represent; rather, our hope is
in a future which we are powerless to produce, a future in which all
that is wrong now finally will be made right; it is a future which God
alone is able to make happen.

Please feel free to call any time you wish. You can cuss God
all you want with me; you should feel free to express whatever you are
feeling, whether it is in the form of sadness and tears, bewilderment,
anger, abandonment, or whatever it happens to be. I'm available at any
time, really.

Your friend,
Hartley"

Loss whether it is the loss of a child, a marriage, a friendship even a business sends us into places of grief and anger we could never imagine ourselves going.  It's okay, go ahead and go there just don't go alone. This calls for your community of faith,wonderful counselors and true friends whether near you or far away to walk this path with you.   I recall a scripture, "And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love."
In time, the intenseness of the grief will gradually fade and we will be able to feel semi normal again.
You who are suffering are not alone. I may not know you personally but I will be more than happy to walk along side you and uphold you in my prayers.
There are so many types of losses, and all are very painful, and all need time to heal.
 I wish you PEACE until we visit again, and feel free to leave me a comment or prayer request. I take these very seriously and I am here and will walk with you to the best of my ability.
I dedicate this post to Connally and Bolivia Powell . May Walt rest in peace.
Thank you Hartley for allowing me to show your heart and your love for your friend.

 

   

Friends

I had breakfast with a precious friend a couple of days ago. We had a great time and caught up on all the happenings with our husbands and kids and grand kids. Then the conversation took a turn, a wonderful turn. We began to talk about memories, what we meant to each other, the changes and love we had brought to one another over the years.
I started thinking about friendships and how they evolve and grow taking different shapes as our lives change and grow.
Here's a great definition of "friend" from the Urban Dictionary it's not too spiritual, but it does have something to say!

"A real friend is someone who: a) it's okay to fart in front of. b) you don't mind talking to on the bus for at least 20 minutes. c) can borrow $5 and never has to pay it back d) you'll actually call up do stuff.   Bob: "Hey Jim, you wanna go see a show downtown" Jim: "Sorry man, I'm broke, and how are we gonna get there." Bob: "No problem, I'll lend you the 5 bucks and we'll take the bus." Jim: "Yeah, okay" (loud farting sound) Bob: "Whoah! That was a good one!" I have a couple of examples of friendships I watch intently and hopefully, have learned from. Michael W. Smith sings "a friend's a friend forever... And a lifetime's not too long to live as friends." My daughter, Emily, has one of those friends. She is 33 now and Mary Elizabeth has been her friend since fourth grade. How long is that? They text almost daily, talk when Mary's phone works, visit yearly, and think of each other momently. They have traveled the world and back together, watched each other fall in and out of love until finally both (at about the same time) found wonderful husbands. I have been so blessed to see this relationship grow through the years. Honestly I am pretty envious of them! But they have worked at their friendship, making space in their lives for each other. It is truly grand to watch! (These two only lived in the same town for about three years before we moved half way across the country) Let me tell you a little about another set of friends. My husband and John have been friends since second grade ( they are both 57 now). They played, camped, smoked, drank, fought, and collected a mass of pocket knives together. Sometimes when I hear them haggling over a knife, one or the other will say something like "no, you just hold onto it; no need to buy it, just hang on to it for me for a while." This goes on year after year! John is the kind of friend that will drop and run if you are in need. He has been there for Hartley at times no one else would give him the time of day! They talk every day, play guitars about twice a week, and we have dinner together about once a month, or more. It's a lifetime friendship, and as noted in the lyrics above, "a lifetime's not too long to live as friends." Friendships like these are few and far between, and you're lucky if you have one. I have to remind myself I have really good friendships even if they don't look like the two described above. I don't have a friendship like Emily and Mary, or Hartley and John. I wish I did but I don't. But I have wonderful friends! We move in and out of each others lives, gracefully flowing back and forth; it's always easy to pick up where we last left off. I am blessed with my lifetime friendships but still long for one of those that uses the back door unannounced with a piece of pie asking if the coffee is on! (I think there may be one on  my horizon because as I get older I won't have the time constraints that bog me down now!) My friend Jo and I used to have that kind of "backdoor"relationship. We would pick up each others kids from school and call to say we had their kids and dinner would be ready at 6! While the kids played, we would talk about our dreams and our plans for the future. We laughed a lot. We cried a lot. We shared our hearts always! Time and circumstances changed and so did we. Hartley and I moved to Kansas City, MO, Durham, NC, and Waco, Texas before we ended up back in the same town again with Jo and Dru nearly 27 years later. We always stayed in touch and would visit once or twice a year, always gracefully flowing back into each others lives. For example, Jo would come to Texas and help me with huge weddings. I'll never forget one time, I asked her if she wanted to finish a big arrangement (retailing at $400); she said sure, and started cramming hydrangeas in it like she had been doing it for a lifetime! (Hartley and Dru would be somewhere smoking pipes and talking theology. They have been friends since they were about 5 years old.) One time Jo came to Dallas, as a support group of one, when Emily and I were doing a floral demonstration and speaking to a really exclusive Dallas Garden Club (Laura Bush was a member in absentia, while they were in the White House). I couldn't have made it through without her saying you guys are going to be great! We are in the same town again but as time has passed and life has continued, our friendship is different than when we lived here way back when. It is still a deep seated, honest to goodness friendship that has just taken another shape. I got a call from Jo the other day while she was driving to Little Rock to pick up Dru after a mission trip to Haiti. We talked almost the whole trip! It was wonderful! Jo isn't much for long phone conversations so I felt very special indeed! Time and space change things in even the closest of friendships but it doesn't mean that they change for the worse. They just change. I love Jo and she loves me and if called upon, would lay down her life for me. I am so truly grateful for her friendship--whatever shape it happens to take. Jo is a lifetime kind of friend. My mind is flooded with names of wonderful people that have walked through my life and I through theirs; friendships which look different from each other but are each as rich and full of love as one could hope for! I cherish my friendships and pray that I will be there for each of them as they have been there for me. Remember "a lifetime's not too long to live as friends"! Peace, till we visit again and nurture and enjoy the adventure of friendship!