I was born in England in 1940, in a time of fear. German
Be Not Afraid Fear
Chapter 2
Fear
I was born in England in 1940, in a time of fear. German bombers flew nightly right over our home in the Cotswold countryside, heading toward nearby Birmingham, and on their way back they would randomly drop whatever they still carried. Several times bombs fell very near our house, and my mother later told me how she often agonized over the safety of us children.
In 1955, when my family came to the United States, the Blitz was a distant memory, but another war – the Cold War – was in full swing, with both superpowers racing to build the most powerful weapon. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still present, and the nuclear hysteria that had developed since then was at an all-time high. Schools had regular air-raid drills, and families built their own bomb shelters and stocked them with canned goods. Newspapers carried stories about possible Soviet attacks on American cities.
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For me, living in the United States was an exciting adventure. At the same time it was frightening to be reminded that Rifton, our new home, was within the ninety-mile radius that experts predicted would be
doomed if an atomic bomb were ever dropped on New York City.
I never got used to the drills. Again and again I fought my anxiety of bombs and war, and I sensed a similar anxiety in many of my classmates, despite the jokes. Others of my generation will, no doubt, have similar recollections.
Fear, of course, is not limited to particular places or eras. It is a universal emotion, if not a primal instinct. Each of us has felt it – recoiling from a sudden burst of flame or a snarling dog, for instance, or grasping at a railing and backing away from a sudden drop-off. But there's another type of fear: the fear that comes with serious illness and the prospect of death. This fear has less to do with self-preservation. It is fear of an uncertain future, fear of change, and perhaps most importantly, fear of facing one's life squarely and coming up empty-handed.
When Matt, a 22-year-old I knew, was stricken by a malignant lymphoma a few years ago, we talked about this fear, and those conversations have stayed with me ever since. Like most patients who have just been diagnosed with a serious illness, Matt was primarily
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concerned with his physical condition, at least at first, and peppered his doctors with all sorts of questions. What was the cause of the lymphoma? How effective was the treatment supposed to be? What were his
chances of survival? What did this or that medical term mean? Within a few days, however, his overriding concern had changed to his spiritual state. It was as if he sensed that his life had taken an irreversible turn and that no matter what the outcome, he needed to set it in order. As his family doctor later remembered:
I dropped by Matt's room two days after he'd been
discharged and noticed that he'd been crying. I asked
him what was up and he told me, in brief, that he had
had a long talk with his dad and that he felt he had
to deepen his life. He said there were things on his
conscience that he needed to tell someone about. He
also said he felt "scared and lonely."
I suggested that he try to get out of the house in
the next few days, even if he felt rotten. Maybe that
would help. But he just looked past me and said, "My
relationship with God is not what it should be."
I assured him that all of us needed to deepen our lives,
not just him, and that his illness was helping us all to
realize our need for God. Matt just lay there with big wet
eyes, staring straight ahead, absorbing the gravity of his
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personal situation. Looking at him, I suddenly realized
that each of us needs such a moment.
Around the same time, Matt sent me an e-mail in which he wrote:
There's a passage in the Letter of James that is very
important to me right now. It talks about telling each
other your sins so that your prayers will be heard and
answered. Making sure that all of my sins are confessed
and forgiven, and asking forgiveness of people whom
I've hurt, has never been so important to me as it is right
now…more important than physical healing. When your
need for God outweighs your need to appear flawless
in front of the people around you, repentance becomes
something you long for, not dread. I experienced this
very personally when I came home from the hospital.
I knew it was literally a matter of life or death to
straighten out my relationship with God if I was going to
get through my illness.
In the days that followed Matt sent me numerous such e-mails, and I tried to answer him in return. One thing
I told him was that having cancer means having one's personal power dismantled, and that perhaps God was
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trying to speak to him through it. I also reminded him that he'd had everything going for him up till now: he was young and strong, handsome and gifted. He had the world by the tail. But perhaps God couldn't use him
with all his gifts. I said, "Matt, maybe God had to bring you low, so he could work through your weakness. Now you have to ask for strength to accept it." Amazingly, he replied, "I hear you. It's going to be hard, but that's what I have to do."
Matt changed greatly over the following months. At the time he was diagnosed, he was a brash and often loud-mouthed joker; happy-go-lucky on the surface, but privately terrified. Six short months later, however, he was a different person. True, he never lost his silly streak, and was still scared at times, even near the end. But having gone through days and nights of the most excruciating pain, he had developed a new, deeper side. And having stopped looking for an escape from the hard fact that he was dying, he had come to terms with the thought, and faced it head on. In doing so, he found strength to meet the agonies of death calmly.
Not everyone dies peacefully, and it's not just a matter of emotional make-up or personality. Peace cannot be found solely by "working through" one's feelings, as people often put it. There's no question that doing this
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can help us quell our fears – especially in the sense of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, like Matt did, and turning to the support of those we trust and love. But fear cannot be conquered by emotional catharsis or
willpower. Even a hardened soldier will cry out for his mother at the moment of death.
In my experience, there is a definite correlation between fear and the "hardness" of a soul. For a person who is conscious of his weakness, it is a relief to admit his limits and ask for help. For an independent person who sees such vulnerability as defeat, however, it is terrifying, especially if he has steeled himself against the idea of "giving in" to death for a long time. Suddenly he sees his self-reliance as the illusion it always was, and realizes that even the strongest man is helpless when confronted with his own mortality.
In her recent memoir, Body Toxic, author Susanne Antonetta illustrates this vividly. A woman who always had everything under control, Antonetta's grandmother ruled her household with an iron hand and an unyielding opinion on everything from food, clothing, schedules, and careers, to the choice of her children's mates and the prospective names of their babies. (If she didn't approve, she vetoed them.) But when death came, she was gripped by an uncontrollable fear:
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It was terrible to see someone so afraid to die. There
were no platitudes – a life well lived, dying surrounded
by a healthy family, being remembered – that could
encircle the enormity of her fear. Our presence offered
her nothing. We could have been winked out of existence
for all she cared. She grew haggard with her fear, her
jowls and ribs shrinking, her eyes wild and distracted.
She'd lost the charming carelessness of the woman in
love with her solitude.
My grandmother died haunted. I don't mean just by
her death. She saw ghosts and phantoms every night
when she went to bed, hiding in her room and pouring in
through the windows. They made her scream. She lived
in a world of bad spirits. I'd moved far away by then so I
don't have my grandmother's descriptions of them, just
my mother's laconic ones: "Oh, you know. Bad."
Antonetta's depiction of dying is not pretty, but it is unusually insightful in drawing the connection between the personal and the cosmic. After all, we are never alone, but are surrounded at all times by the two opposing forces of evil and good. And though the battle between them is played out in many arenas, I believe it is most intense wherever the soul of a dying person hangs in the balance.
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Dorie, a close friend of my mother's who felt continually tormented by this conflict, lived with it not only at the end of her life, but for decades. Dorie lived next door to our family for many years, first as a part of
my parents' household and, after their deaths, as part of my own.
The Dorie most people knew was a happy person who found great joy in helping others. When a baby was born, she was the first to arrive with fruit, flowers, and an offer to clean the house. It was the same when guests were expected. Nothing satisfied her as much as making sure the extra room was dusted and the bed freshly made. She was endlessly cheerful, it seemed, and willing to do the most mundane chore. She never expected or wanted thanks.
Underneath, however, Dorie was a nervous, anxious person. She had trouble sleeping at night and always wanted to have someone nearby. She worried over every symptom of aging and dreaded the prospect of physical ailments or disabilities. By fifty she was already worrying about dying. Thankfully, her determination to be of use to other people and brighten their day kept her afloat – and prevented the fears that plagued her from driving her to the brink.
Then cancer struck. For six years Dorie battled it bravely. Initially she underwent several rounds of chemotherapy, each of which found her so apprehensive
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and distraught that she required continual emotional support and pastoral counseling as well. Luckily, she pulled through and went on to enjoy several cancerfree years.
Then came a relapse. This time the cancer grew rapidly, and we knew Dorie did not have long to live. She was in severe pain, and radiation provided only partial relief. Sitting with her and talking seemed to help more. With her, my wife and I sought for answers to her questions: What is death? Why do we have to die? Is there life after death? Together we read many passages from scripture about death and resurrection, searching for verses that would strengthen her. I reminded her that she had served God and those around her for decades, and said I felt sure he would reward her.
All the same, the last weeks of Dorie's life were an enormous struggle, both physically and spiritually. One sensed it was not just a matter of ordinary human anxiety, but a vital fight for her soul and spirit. She seemed besieged by dark powers. My wife and daughters nursed her for days on end and accompanied her through long hours of inner torment. Once she cried out that something evil had entered her room. With what little strength she had, she threw a pillow at it, shouting, "Go away, darkness! Go away!" At such times those of us with her would gather around
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her bed and turn to God in song or in prayer. Dorie loved the Lord's Prayer very much; it was always an encouragement to her.
One morning, after a particularly restless night,
Dorie's fear was suddenly gone, and she said, "I want to depend on God alone." She was full of joy and anticipation of that great moment when God would take her, and felt it would be very soon. She said, "There's a surprise today: the kingdom's coming! When it comes, I will run downstairs and outside to welcome it!" That same afternoon she exclaimed, "All my pain is gone. I feel so much better! Thank you, thank you, God!" A little later she said with a smile, "God will call me home tonight."
In the evening, she called my family – her adoptive family – together and hugged each one of us in farewell. We sang and prayed by her bed, and she remained peaceful through the night. She slipped away from us for good as dawn was breaking.
Having fought as long and hard as she did, Dorie's departure was nothing less than a victory. She knew what it was like to be gripped by cold fear, but she clung to her belief in a God who was greater than her anxieties and never let them completely overwhelm her. And as she breathed her last, she did so with the calmness of those who have come to realize, as the first Christian believers expressed it, that the world is merely a bridge
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between earthly and eternal life: "Cross over it, but do not build your house on it."