On death and love

Yesterday was the sixth anniversary of my father's death. This beautiful piece found me through The Lead. It is entitled "My Faith: What People Talk About Before They Die," and was written by Hospice Chaplain Kerry Egan on the CNN Belief Blog. I am going to post it in its entirety here, if only so I can find it again whenever I need it.

Editor's Note: Kerry Egan is a hospice chaplain in Massachusetts and the author of "Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago."
By Kerry Egan, Special to CNN

As a divinity school student, I had just started working as a student chaplain at a cancer hospital when my professor asked me about my work.  I was 26 years old and still learning what a chaplain did.

"I talk to the patients," I told him.

"You talk to patients?  And tell me, what do people who are sick and dying talk to the student chaplain about?" he asked.

I had never considered the question before.  “Well,” I responded slowly, “Mostly we talk about their families.”

“Do you talk about God?

“Umm, not usually.”

“Or their religion?”

“Not so much.”

“The meaning of their lives?”

“Sometimes.”

“And prayer?  Do you lead them in prayer?  Or ritual?”

“Well,” I hesitated.  “Sometimes.  But not usually, not really.”

I felt derision creeping into the professor's voice.  “So you just visit people and talk about their families?”

“Well, they talk.  I mostly listen.”

“Huh.”  He leaned back in his chair.

A week later, in the middle of a lecture in this professor's packed class, he started to tell a story about a student he once met who was a chaplain intern at a hospital.

“And I asked her, 'What exactly do you do as a chaplain?'  And she replied, 'Well, I talk to people about their families.'” He paused for effect. “And that was this student's understanding of  faith!  That was as deep as this person's spiritual life went!  Talking about other people's families!”

The students laughed at the shallowness of the silly student.  The professor was on a roll.

“And I thought to myself,” he continued, “that if I was ever sick in the hospital, if I was ever dying, that the last person I would ever want to see is some Harvard Divinity School student chaplain wanting to talk to me about my family.”

My body went numb with shame.  At the time I thought that maybe, if I was a better chaplain, I would know how to talk to people about big spiritual questions.  Maybe if dying people met with a good, experienced chaplain they would talk about God, I thought.

Today, 13 years later, I am a hospice chaplain.  I visit people who are dying – in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes.   And if you were to ask me the same question - What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain?  – I, without hesitation or uncertainty, would give you the same answer. Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters.

They talk about the love they felt, and the love they gave.  Often they talk about love they did not receive, or the love they did not know how to offer, the love they withheld, or maybe never felt for the ones they should have loved unconditionally.

They talk about how they learned what love is, and what it is not.    And sometimes, when they are actively dying, fluid gurgling in their throats, they reach their hands out to things I cannot see and they call out to their parents:  Mama, Daddy, Mother.

What I did not understand when I was a student then, and what I would explain to that professor now, is that people talk to the chaplain about their families because that is how we talk about God.  That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.  That is how we talk about the big spiritual questions of human existence.

We don't live our lives in our heads, in theology and theories.  We live our lives in our families:  the families we are born into, the families we create, the families we make through the people we choose as friends.

This is where we create our lives, this is where we find meaning, this is where our purpose becomes clear.

Family is where we first experience love and where we first give it.  It's probably the first place we've been hurt by someone we love, and hopefully the place we learn that love can overcome even the most painful rejection.

This crucible of love is where we start to ask those big spiritual questions, and ultimately where they end.

I have seen such expressions of love:  A husband gently washing his wife's face with a cool washcloth, cupping the back of her bald head in his hand to get to the nape of her neck, because she is too weak to lift it from the pillow. A daughter spooning pudding into the mouth of her mother, a woman who has not recognized her for years.

A wife arranging the pillow under the head of her husband's no-longer-breathing body as she helps the undertaker lift him onto the waiting stretcher.

We don't learn the meaning of our lives by discussing it.  It's not to be found in books or lecture halls or even churches or synagogues or mosques.  It's discovered through these actions of love.

If God is love, and we believe that to be true, then we learn about God when we learn about love. The first, and usually the last, classroom of love is the family.

Sometimes that love is not only imperfect, it seems to be missing entirely.  Monstrous things can happen in families.  Too often, more often than I want to believe possible, patients tell me what it feels like when the person you love beats you or rapes you.  They tell me what it feels like to know that you are utterly unwanted by your parents.  They tell me what it feels like to be the target of someone's rage.   They tell me what it feels like to know that you abandoned your children, or that your drinking destroyed your family, or that you failed to care for those who needed you.

Even in these cases, I am amazed at the strength of the human soul.  People who did not know love in their families know that they should have been loved.  They somehow know what was missing, and what they deserved as children and adults.

When the love is imperfect, or a family is destructive, something else can be learned:  forgiveness.  The spiritual work of being human is learning how to love and how to forgive.

We don’t have to use words of theology to talk about God; people who are close to death almost never do. We should learn from those who are dying that the best way to teach our children about God is by loving each other wholly and forgiving each other fully - just as each of us longs to be loved and forgiven by our mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.

 My father died of cancer. He told me of his diagnosis on December 20, 2005. On January 31, 2006, at 2:13 pm, he died. We only had about six weeks. But we did have six weeks. Which meant there was time for peace, and acceptance, and treasuring the gift of time no matter how short before he was gone.

Now, as he was dying, Dad actually WAS concerned about God, because he carried a lot of sadness and guilt over events in his life. None of us are perfect human beings. Some of us get forgiven for our imperfections. But some of us have a hard time believing in that forgiveness. Some of us have an even harder time forgiving ourselves. And if it hard for us to believe that those here in our lives forgive us, how much harder is it to believe that God forgives us too? My father was not a religious man during his life, but he certainly had drunk deep of that "old time religion" that teaches about divine retribution and eternal torment, and the thing that was not a blessing about knowing that he was going to die is that he had time to dwell upon the certain judgment that he had been promised was waiting for him.

Since Dad did not have a relationship with a minister-- but came from a milieu in which only a minister would have the authority to set his mind at rest-- we were lucky to have a priest from a church I had attended in Tulsa be willing to come and talk to Dad. Another priest (actually a pastor) later came and led my father through a ritual of forgiveness and assurance that allowed him to rest more comfortably, it seemed. Even though my father was not an Episcopalian, he seemed to sink gratefully into the soothing waters of love and reconciliation that were offered by these words.

Soon afterward, Dad was moved into palliative care. He slept most of the time. When he would awaken, he would sometimes reach his hands out and call out names of friends, cousins, loved ones long gone and welcome them as if they were standing right before him. His eyes would light up, and he would drawl out, "Weeeeeeelllll, Hank!" and have brief conversations before subsiding again into quiet sleep (I don't remember many of the names, since these people had been long gone before I was ever born, but I can tell you nearly all the women he knew had a middle name of "Mae." That's how we Okies roll).

I believe that was Love visiting my Dad there in his hospital room. The love that all of these people had given my Dad in his life gathered around him in the gathering twilight and illuminated the pathway for him into peace.

I hope he finally felt all the love that had been given him during those times, and during the times when the rest of his family or friends would come and take his hand and speak to him. Sometimes, we would just hold his hand. Sometimes, we would sing him songs, quietly, but hoping to surround him with memories of music and harmony, which he loved. My niece and nephew was there, and that was a comfort to him. His children were there. His cousin and his wife and his twin brother were there. But most importantly, I believe he knew that God was there, because of that love. That's why these words from Ms. Egan's essay are so dear to me:

"We don't live our lives in our heads, in theology and theories.  We live our lives in our families:  the families we are born into, the families we create, the families we make through the people we choose as friends.

This is where we create our lives, this is where we find meaning, this is where our purpose becomes clear.

Family is where we first experience love and where we first give it.  It's probably the first place we've been hurt by someone we love, and hopefully the place we learn that love can overcome even the most painful rejection.

This crucible of love is where we start to ask those big spiritual questions, and ultimately where they end.....

We don't learn the meaning of our lives by discussing it.  It's not to be found in books or lecture halls or even churches or synagogues or mosques.  It's discovered through these actions of love.

If God is love, and we believe that to be true, then we learn about God when we learn about love. The first, and usually the last, classroom of love is the family."

Love lives forever. Long after our bodies have gone, the echoes of the love we have given and have received radiates.

I loved my Dad. I know he loved me, even when it was difficult to see, when times for him or for me were hard, and the static of our own fears and vulnerabilities and anger seemed to cut like a cold knife into our ability to accept each other as we were instead of demanding that the other be who we wanted them to be, who we thought we deserved.

It is love that matters.