GOD IN THE DARKNESS

“Out of the depths have I cried unto you, O Lord!” Psalm 130:1

“Life is difficult”is the first line of Scott Peck’s classic book “The Road Less Traveled”. The acceptance of this reality is one of the great challenges of western culture.  The pervasive assault of advertising and marketing add to this challenge.  From birth to death it is nearly impossible to avoid messages persuading us of just the opposite.  Of course you can have “the good life”.  All you need do is: buy our product,  pay for the right school, drive a late model car, buy a large house in an upper class part of town, join clubs (including church) for maximum social exposure, dress for success, shop till you drop.  The messages that life is fun, sexy, beautiful, and easy seem ubiquitous.

Yet, life is difficult.  We slip-slide into this world from the safe and cozy womb, crashing smack dab into garish lights, irritating noise, cold air, and the first of countless stuffy noses.  And it doesn’t get a whole lot easier, in spite of the awesome wonder and joy of it all.  We bump our heads, we get nose bleeds, we cry in fear, want, loneliness, pain.  And even when life seems to be going pretty well, there are no guarantees.  Something will happen—a death, an illness, a fight, a misunderstanding, a job loss, a betrayal.  I was about  50 when I finally realized: this is the way life is.  Period.  There is no magic wand, though I have desperately wished for one countless times. No amount of wishing will change it. Perhaps my most significant experience of that occurred some years ago.

It was the fall of 1993.  My husband, Norris and I had gone to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for a few days. We were reveling in the exquisite fall colors.  Then one evening our daughter called to say doctors had discovered cancer throughout most of my sister Ann’s body.  We were stunned.  I visited her in the hospital as soon as we got home.  Her face looked haggard and colorless.  She hugged me tight.  It seemed she would never let go.   She said she loved me.  She was afraid and so was I.  And our mother was afraid.  When we talked, she didn’t say much, but I could hear the strain in her voice.  I called our other sister Sandra, Ann’s twin, in Wisconsin and suggested she come.  She did.

A few nights later, at 4 a.m., our phone rang. It was my mother’s neighbor.  She had found Mother on the bathroom floor.  She’d had a stroke and was being taken to the hospital, the one where I worked as a chaplain.  

I staggered around trying to put on my clothes, but was soon lying on the bed, shaking and hyperventilating.  I couldn’t move.  I can not do this, I heard in my mind.  Norris asked how he could help.  I didn’t know.  Suddenly a voice within told me to eat a banana.  He brought it, I ate it, and soon  was revived enough to finish dressing.  Where did that knowing, that voice, come from?  Somehow I was not alone in the dark.

We drove to the hospital and found her in the ER, an unfamiliar image of her usual self.  Her voice was weak and wobbly, bloody abrasions covering one side of her face.  How could this shriveled up old woman  be my mother?  I remember asking Norris, quite sincerely, “Are you sure this is Mom?”

She had suffered a stroke affecting the left side of her body.  Mother was 84, had been a well adjusted widow for several years.  Again we were stunned.  Sandra, still in town,  arrived. Over the next few days we took turns visiting Mother in one hospital and Ann in another.  Mother couldn’t swallow at first and an NG tube through her nose and throat was threatened, followed ultimately by a feeding tube if the swallow didn’t return.  She adamantly refused both and within days began swallowing.  Her speech was clear, though she had difficulty expressing herself.  She could read only from the middle of a line to the right edge of the page.  Still, it looked like she would survive and perhaps have some quality of life ahead. 

The stroke was on Sunday.  Early Friday morning the phone rang again.  This time is was my brother-in-law.  He simply said, “Ann just died.”  WHAT!!!  They had already decided the cancer was too advanced to treat and she would go home with Hospice.  Again Norris and I drove in stunned disbelief to the hospital.  I looked at her body. It didn’t seem real.  She was only 56 years old.  I haltingly gave her a blessing, something I had done countless times before as a hospital chaplain.  But this was different.  This was *my* sister.  How could she be dead?  After a time of weeping with her family, we headed for the other hospital, stopping to phone a friend, an Episcopal priest, who agreed to meet us there.

How was I going to tell my mother that her precious daughter was dead?  Where would I find the strength, the words, to give her news that would break her heart?  I participated in this sort of experience with others frequently as a chaplain.  It was never easy.  But this was different.  This was *my* mother and a debilitated mother, at that.   As I sat beside the bed, my friend behind me, her hands on my shoulders, Norris beside me.  Somehow the words came out and then I laid my head on her body and sobbed.  Mother patted my head with her one useable hand.  Typical of her, she presented little overt emotion.  She, too of course, was in shock.  Later in my office we called others,  first reaching my remaining sister who had just returned home to Wisconsin.  Again, I had to give the news that would change her life forever.

Sandra returned immediately and somehow the words were said; somehow we lived through the days; somehow we had Ann’s funeral, a funeral our mother could not attend; and somehow the day after the funeral we sorrowfully admitted Mother to a nursing home—a place where she would be “incarcerated” for the next five and a half  years.  We’d had the presence of mind to add my name to Ann’s as Mother’s Durable Power days before Ann’s death.  And so in less than a month I lost a dear sister and was given full responsibility for my mother.

Where did I find the wherewithal to go through this?  Where do any of us find it when the dark times of life come?  And they do come!  Some of us don’t make it, can’t find that inner strength, and through no fault of our own, are broken by life’s tragedies.  

Still others, somehow find what is necessary to go on.  Such is the story of our friends, Joyce and John.  Joyce  was heavy with her first pregnancy when tests showed the baby had Down Syndrome.  She and her husband, John,  struggled with this awareness, but came to some measure of peace and acceptance prior to his birth.  When Bud was born, however, he had three heart deficiencies too serious for him to survive any corrective measures.  His parents brought him home with Hospice, aware that he could die at any moment.  Their hearts were broken.  How could they bear this agony?  What could they do other than sit and hold their precious son until he took his last breath? Months passed and Buddy still lived.  Finally, Joyce and John began to realize they could make a life with this child and they plunged into it full force.  Buddy couldn’t have been more cared for, more doted upon, given more access to resources to help him grow, more encouraged, more enjoyed.  He spread joy everywhere he went with his clear blue eyes and sweet smile.  All of us who knew him were thrilled at each new breakthrough in his development.  Buddy took a lot of work and effort.  Joyce and John made tough decisions.  Joyce would not return to work.  They would make do with John’s income.  Somehow they found the strength and courage to do it.  They also found a whole new community of friends, people who had children with DS.  They became involved in fund-raising for DS research and gave of themselves for the cause they passionately believed in.

Just before his 2^nd birthday, Buddy became ill with respiratory problems.  His parents decided against treatment measures that might not work and would be torture for their little boy.  On Valentine’s Day, Buddy breathed his last.  Joyce and John were devastated even as they gave thanks for the two years they had been privileged to be Buddy’s parents.  How did they go on?  Where was God in all this?  Why! The unanswerable and perennial question, why?  

God doesn’t use a magic wand, though we would probably all wish for that.  Yet somehow God seems present and offers guidance and caring even when we aren’t aware of it. God offers a Home in the darkness.