Skip This One Unless You Can Bear Another’s Pain
I wish you could have been there, but, for your sake, I’m glad you weren’t and I hope you never have to be there. I was sitting in Dennis and Billy Jean’s family room as she described those agonizing last minutes when they turned off their daughter’s respirator.
Jeannie was just 26, the mother of two small children, Roger Fitzpatrick’s young wife of four years, and Dennis and Billie Jean’s youngest child, their only daughter.
It was an incredible experience being with and listening to Billie Jean as she told how she held Jeannie’s hand when they removed the breathing machine. They watched and hoped for a miracle. But the life in her slipped away. In a few minutes… she was gone. Billie Jean was still holding her frail cold hand.
In the telling Billie Jean gave me her mother’s pain and I held it. It was an awesome and wrenching moment. I wish you could have been there… I’m glad, for your sake that you weren’t.
What am I going to tell them? What will the preacher say in the face of such a loss and pain? I know… I know exactly.
What I won’t say or do is sugar coat the loss with saccharine platitudes and syrupy theology about how God orchestrated the whole event for the good of all. NO WAY!
What I will tell is how good life is, as fragile as it is, yet what a wonderful gift life is….even if it is only for a few years.
I will tell all the beautiful aspects of Jeannie’s life; how she was loved by her family, the precious bond she had with her father, the playfulness she enjoyed with her brother, the intimacy she shared with her husband, the joy of birthing two new lives into the world.
I will tell of all of her health struggles her whole life long and how she overcame moments of desperation with her focus on her babies.
I will tell that in our Western world view her death was wrong, that her parents were suppose to go first and it was she who was suppose to hold her mother’s hand at the end… but that is merely our Western world view… not everyone in our world is so fortunate.
In fact many are like Jeannie and die too young.
What will I say? What hope will I bring. Actually I need not say much. The gift of Jeannie’s live will speak for itself. Her children will be and are our hope.
Jeannie was in my Confirmation Class at the Cross Church back in the 90′s. She memorized the Ten Commandments, knew the teachings of Jesus, and confessed her faith to an entire congregation. She knew God and is in the loving arms of God today. This is some consolation.
But the lesson of Jeannie’s young life is this; the few years that you and I are given on this fragile planet are but a few. It is not the length of them that matters most, although I wish you many. It is what you do with what you have.
Jeannie’s life was more difficult and shorter than most. She struggled and yet she found real life in the love of her childhood home, her marriage, and in giving life and love to her children.
The only question that remains is how will you use the gift of your life for the remaining days that you have? Hold my hand and let us live it together.
I love you – Bryan
