I wrote my sister’s obituary yesterday.
This was the second time I’ve had to write an obituary for a
sister. The first, some nine years ago, her passing was sudden. I was shocked
and numb. I had never written an obituary before, but with a degree in
journalism, I was counted the most qualified. So I Googled some tips and wrote
about my sister’s life and death.
My eldest sister’s death was different. The process was slow—yet
still recklessly fast—uncompromising, a roller coaster with an ever-downward
bent. It involved a diagnosis and operations, chemo and, eventually, hospice.
June 5, hospice told us she had 48 hours. Forty-eight is an innocuous
number until it’s ticking away someone’s life expectancy in hours. Then it’s
relentless. Those 48 hours passed, and instead of dying, my sister felt better,
had less pain. She was still on hospice, but even as my brain told me her
illness was still terminal, my heart couldn’t help letting in a little niggling
hope. Even as my husband’s experience as a hospice chaplain told me it was only
a momentary rebound, my spirit couldn’t resist the whisper: Maybe the doctors were wrong all along.
Maybe this isn’t the end.
My sister’s strength was, in its own way, relentless. Not as
relentless as the cancer, after all, but a determination that wouldn’t allow
even defeat to be defeat. June 19, two weeks after that 48-hour sentence, I
stopped to see her. She was drowsy from the pain medication, passing in and out
of sleep as she tried to talk to me, but I sat by the hospital bed set up in
their living room and prayed. It didn’t feel like the last time I would see
her, but my brain still insisted that it might be, so as I left I said, “See ya
later.” Because, either way, I would.
So, when the call came Thursday night, June 21, it was
expected but also so, so shocking. I was numb. I was also five hours from home,
staying in a hotel room with my family and getting ready to attend the Oregon
homeschool convention the next day. I was in no state to make decisions, but I
had a decision to make. Did I rush home, even though there was nothing I could
do, no more goodbyes to be said, and just, I don’t know, sit there? Did I tear my family away from the event we’d looked
forward to for months, pour all the registration fees and hotel payments down
the drain, listen to my children’s disappointed “whys” all the way home? Or did
I stay and attend the conference, feeling torn and grief-stricken but also,
just maybe, being distracted enough to make it through the weekend?
We stayed.
It was the strangest homeschool conference I’ve ever
attended, not because the conference itself was different, but because I felt
like I was slogging through mud at the bottom of a pond, watching everything go
by through particle-filled water. I had weeks ago volunteered as a Friday morning
greeter, and I greeted my heart out. I hope my greetings were welcoming, but I
am sure they were strained and watery. During the weekend, there were times I
forgot, whole minutes at a time. I forgot while I watched the joy on my son’s
face as he got to fly a Civil Air Patrol drone. I forgot while talking to
another homeschool parent while our children played with chalk between sessions.
 |
| The Civil Air Patrol was a favorite with many kids at the conference, including my son. |
Then there were other times when I remembered, and tears
came gushing out as I walked down hallways surrounded by strangers. I was so
grateful that, of all the places, and all the strangers I could have been
around that weekend, I was in that place with those people. The last breakout
session I attended was entitled, “When Life Broadsides Your Homeschool.” Because,
you know, it does. When it ended, I was grateful to the presenter and wanted to
go up and tell her so. But I couldn’t. I was in the last row, breaking down,
completely losing it in a room full of strangers. In that place, though, even
strangers were friends, and as I groped for a tissue, a voice said in my ear, “I’m
sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong, but can I pray for you?”
We left there Saturday night, and Sunday was another kind of
surreality. I got to hug my mother, and we talked about my sister’s last days,
her death, if we knew what the funeral plans were. I unpacked. I watered
flowers that had wilted over the last three days. I rested, because Monday was
coming, and I instinctively knew I would have to leave the surreal and face the
real.
So, Monday I wrote my sister’s obituary. With six years at a
newspaper under my belt, I now have lots of experience with obituaries.
Technically, that made this time around easy. In reality, I was still shocked
and numb. It was difficult to try to condense my sister’s life into a page of
text—not as difficult as it was for my nephew to write his mother’s eulogy or
for my niece to plan her final service, but difficult.
Before we left for the conference, my sunflowers were
budding. When we returned, my Coconut Ice sunflowers were in full bloom.
As I
looked at them, I thought about burying those seeds, waiting, watering, thinking
for a while that they wouldn’t germinate. Now, though, there they are, in full
glory, reaching for the sun. It brought to mind a verse from one of my favorite
Easter hymns:
When our hearts are
wintry, grieving or in pain,
Your touch can call us
back to life again,
Fields of our hearts
that dead and bare have been;
Love is come again
like wheat arising green.
(Lutheran Book of
Worship, Augsburg Publishing House, 1978.)
“For if we have been united with him in a
death like his, we shall certainly be
united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5 ESV, emphasis
mine). It also made me think of the verse I will cling to as we prepare
for my sister’s celebration of life next Monday.
“Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who
lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
