Yet even at the grave we make our song
Oct. 21st, 2018 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
choco_froshSo my uncle died this morning.
Depart, o christian soul, out of this world:
In the name of God the Father who created you,
In the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you,
In the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.
May your rest be this day in peace,
and your dwelling place the paradise of God.
Bob Mooney was... lessee, 60-something. So by the standards of any previous era, not an altogether unreasonable time to die. But...
He was the only one of Grandma's children who followed her into being a Christian Scientist. On the off-chance that anyone doesn't know, that means they don't believe in modern medicine: it's faith healing or nothin'.* About four years ago, he starting having abdominal pain, but it didn't (noticeably) get in the way of the rest of his life. I remember him, most of four years ago, giving the eulogy at Grandpa's funeral: an excellent (if slightly theologically eccentric) speech that fit well with my excellent and theologically-eccentric grandfather. Anyway, I don't whether that was before or after it started, but Bob was very much his usual self: dry humor, sarcastic-sounding even or when he was being sincere, somehow managing to be wry and optimistic at the same time.
A year later, Grandma died; and it was sometime around there that we all found out (not entirely to our surprise) that Bob had stomach cancer.** And then sometime after that, he decided...well, I'd like to think that the whole "Modern medicine is BS and/or sinful" thing was itself BS, but I don't actually know.
My biggest regret in all this is that the two of us never got a chance to talk about matters religious.
Anyway: for whatever reason, he decided he was going to give modern medicine a try after all; and was on chemo. for a while. This is probably why he made it to my Aunt's garden party this past summer; and it was notable, up through and well past that point, how optimistic but also philosophical he was about it. He (it appeared) had made his peace with his own mortality. "I might die next month," he said repeatedly, "or next week, or next year, or next decade; or I might get hit by a car tomorrow. Who knows!" But either he'd left treatment until it was too late, or it was just one of those cases where the cancer's gonna kill you regardless. And when it became obvious that the timeframe was going to be more like "next week", his attitude changed (or so I'm given to understand: third-hand information, here.) Toward the end, he was angry: angry at death, angry at his religion; lashing out at doctors, relatives, friends; perhaps angry at himself, for ditching an essential part of his faith for something that merely gave him an extra two years of chemotherapy hell, rather than a cure. Stages of grief, maybe. I don't know. I never got to talk to him.
That we may end our lives in faith and hope, without suffering and without reproach, let us pray to the Lord.
Aunt Sue asked us, a week ago, if we could write letters to him, sharing a happy memory we had involving him. I think, though, that some ridiculous proportion of us were going to go with one evening at Ossipee, him singing old show tunes, his sisters joining in. I figured he wouldn't want yet another iteration of that, but I couldn't write him a comforting letter full of faith, 'cause while I think I'm the only active churchgoer in the family now, I'm bad at faith. And so I thought I'd write him a review of Dan's play, instead--he always loved theater. But the review kept getting stuck (and work and things happened), and so letter and review are still in a document on my hard drive, both still half-completed.
My one consolation - and it's a bittersweet one - is that even if I'd gotten a letter mailed off on Monday like I'd hoped, it probably wouldn't have gotten to him (he was moved to a hospice on like Thursday), and even if it had, he likely wouldn't have been capable of reading it once it got to him.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
(Repeatedly interrupted because I needed to do things like make dinner. Because life goes on.)
* Ironically or appropriately, today the Church of the Advent, in its usual eccentric fashion, decided we were going all-out for the Feast of St. Luke, patron saint of physicians. And so today's first reading included: My child, when you are ill, do not rebel, but pray to the Lord and he will heal you...
Then let the doctor take over - the Lord created him too - do not let him leave you, for you need him. There are times when good health depends on doctors.
** Or colon cancer? Or both?
Depart, o christian soul, out of this world:
In the name of God the Father who created you,
In the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you,
In the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you.
May your rest be this day in peace,
and your dwelling place the paradise of God.
Bob Mooney was... lessee, 60-something. So by the standards of any previous era, not an altogether unreasonable time to die. But...
He was the only one of Grandma's children who followed her into being a Christian Scientist. On the off-chance that anyone doesn't know, that means they don't believe in modern medicine: it's faith healing or nothin'.* About four years ago, he starting having abdominal pain, but it didn't (noticeably) get in the way of the rest of his life. I remember him, most of four years ago, giving the eulogy at Grandpa's funeral: an excellent (if slightly theologically eccentric) speech that fit well with my excellent and theologically-eccentric grandfather. Anyway, I don't whether that was before or after it started, but Bob was very much his usual self: dry humor, sarcastic-sounding even or when he was being sincere, somehow managing to be wry and optimistic at the same time.
A year later, Grandma died; and it was sometime around there that we all found out (not entirely to our surprise) that Bob had stomach cancer.** And then sometime after that, he decided...well, I'd like to think that the whole "Modern medicine is BS and/or sinful" thing was itself BS, but I don't actually know.
My biggest regret in all this is that the two of us never got a chance to talk about matters religious.
Anyway: for whatever reason, he decided he was going to give modern medicine a try after all; and was on chemo. for a while. This is probably why he made it to my Aunt's garden party this past summer; and it was notable, up through and well past that point, how optimistic but also philosophical he was about it. He (it appeared) had made his peace with his own mortality. "I might die next month," he said repeatedly, "or next week, or next year, or next decade; or I might get hit by a car tomorrow. Who knows!" But either he'd left treatment until it was too late, or it was just one of those cases where the cancer's gonna kill you regardless. And when it became obvious that the timeframe was going to be more like "next week", his attitude changed (or so I'm given to understand: third-hand information, here.) Toward the end, he was angry: angry at death, angry at his religion; lashing out at doctors, relatives, friends; perhaps angry at himself, for ditching an essential part of his faith for something that merely gave him an extra two years of chemotherapy hell, rather than a cure. Stages of grief, maybe. I don't know. I never got to talk to him.
That we may end our lives in faith and hope, without suffering and without reproach, let us pray to the Lord.
Aunt Sue asked us, a week ago, if we could write letters to him, sharing a happy memory we had involving him. I think, though, that some ridiculous proportion of us were going to go with one evening at Ossipee, him singing old show tunes, his sisters joining in. I figured he wouldn't want yet another iteration of that, but I couldn't write him a comforting letter full of faith, 'cause while I think I'm the only active churchgoer in the family now, I'm bad at faith. And so I thought I'd write him a review of Dan's play, instead--he always loved theater. But the review kept getting stuck (and work and things happened), and so letter and review are still in a document on my hard drive, both still half-completed.
My one consolation - and it's a bittersweet one - is that even if I'd gotten a letter mailed off on Monday like I'd hoped, it probably wouldn't have gotten to him (he was moved to a hospice on like Thursday), and even if it had, he likely wouldn't have been capable of reading it once it got to him.
Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.
(Repeatedly interrupted because I needed to do things like make dinner. Because life goes on.)
* Ironically or appropriately, today the Church of the Advent, in its usual eccentric fashion, decided we were going all-out for the Feast of St. Luke, patron saint of physicians. And so today's first reading included: My child, when you are ill, do not rebel, but pray to the Lord and he will heal you...
Then let the doctor take over - the Lord created him too - do not let him leave you, for you need him. There are times when good health depends on doctors.
** Or colon cancer? Or both?
no subject
Date: 2018-10-21 09:50 pm (UTC)His memory for a blessing. It sounds complicated and I am in favor of making dinner; life does go on and there's a reason neighbors show up with plates of food for the bereaved.
*hugs*