Reverence
Be Not Afraid Reverence
Chapter 5 Reverence
After Ruby gave birth to her second child, Ann, she spent the night, as she put it, in "unshadowed joy." There was every reason to celebrate: it had been a normal pregnancy, the baby was healthy and beautiful, and David, her first child, now had a sibling to grow up with. Two days later, Ann died. As her father, Doug, remembers it:
When Ann was a day old, the doctor told us that he was
very concerned about her, and that already at delivery
he had noticed something wrong. Why he said nothing
right away we'll never know. In any case, we had to take
Ann to a hospital halfway across the state (we were
living in rural North Carolina at the time), and since the
birth had not taken place at that hospital, Ruby was not
allowed to stay with her. We had no choice but to return
home. Waiting for news was agonizing. The hours
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seemed endless, but we could do nothing. We had no
direct contact with the hospital.
On the second day, our precious little daughter
breathed her last. Ruby was inconsolable and wept
and wept. It only made things worse when the doctors
told us the problem – we were Rh incompatible – and
implied that there was little hope, medically speaking,
for us to have any more children.
Leaving Ruby, I drove out alone to bring Ann back
home to be buried. On arrival at the hospital, however,
I was informed that her body had been turned over to a
local undertaker, as required by state law.
I drove to the funeral home, and was at first received
with great courtesy and solicitude. When the undertaker
realized I was not there to buy a casket or arrange a
funeral, however, he became icy and left the room. I
waited at the front desk with the baby's bassinet. When
the undertaker returned, he was holding our little girl
upside down, by the feet, with one hand. I reached for
the quilt Ruby had made for the baby, but before I could
do more, the man dropped her into the bassinet. He was
cold, disgusted.
On the long, lonely drive home, I had to fight very
hard to find forgiveness in my heart. I prepared a grave
on our homestead, and together we laid our little girl to
rest with very sore hearts.
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Extreme as Doug and Ruby's story may seem, it illustrates an attitude that is rampant in today's world. Call it jadedness, indifference, or callousness – it all stems from the same lack of respect for life (and the
loss of life), and it shows itself in numerous ways. It is there in hospital settings where "professionalism" demands that patients be referred to by room numbers rather than names. It is there at funeral homes, which often promote lavish spending by implying that to save money is to scrimp and thus dishonor the dead. (Who wants to be known as the family who bought their mother a budget casket?) It is also there where children quarrel – even if behind the scenes – over wills and inheritances, and deny a dying parent the possibility of a truly peaceful end.
Irreverence is also there when, because of our superficiality, we are unable to share someone else's pain or grief, and thus try to gloss it over with forced cheerfulness. Linda, the mother of the young man I mentioned in a previous chapter, says such attempts tend to only worsen an already difficult situation:
Not long after it had become clear that medically
speaking, there was nothing more to be done for Matt, a
well-meaning neighbor cheerfully told my husband that
she knew our son was going to pull through: "Matt's not
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going to die. I just know he's not going to die." Obviously
we wanted to believe the same thing. But to hold out a
false hope to Matt when it was clear he was rapidly going
downhill? That wouldn't have been fair. A few days later
a friend stopped by and told Matt he was "still praying
for a miracle." Matt replied, "Thanks, but I think it's past
that stage. The main thing now is that I find peace."
During Matt's last weeks, Linda also found herself struggling with what she felt was a general lack of respect for the finality of death – and not only in her son's friends, but even in him:
Three days before he died, someone brought a handful
of rental movies for him to watch, and when I voiced
my worry that he might fritter away his last hours on
earth entertaining himself, I found myself embroiled in
a family fight.
People had brought him videos throughout his
illness, and though I knew they meant well, I was always
a little uncomfortable with it. It wasn't a question of the
movies – though some of the stuff he watched wasn't all
that great. I just felt he was using them too often, as an
easy out, a means of escape from reality. I didn't think it
was healthy.
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To be honest, I felt the same about a lot of other
things people brought him: beer, hard liquor, dozens of
CDs, posters, headphones, a radio, a new stereo system
with six speakers, a Rio player for downloading music
from the Internet, and on and on.
I remember talking about it with my husband and
wondering: Is this really the best way of showing
kindness to someone with cancer – dumping a lot of
junk on him? Sure, we knew it would comfort him in
a material way. But ultimately, these gifts were just
things – things to divert him from real life-and-death
issues he needed to face. Matt felt the same way about
most of it, and at one point he cleared a lot of that stuff
out of his room.
Anyway, I was concerned that Matt would want to
spend what turned out to be one of the last afternoons
of his life watching movies, and I said so. But he did not
agree with me at all. He said, "I just want to be able to
laugh and forget about things for a few hours! How can
you be my moral compass now?" He was so mad.
I was in tears, because I was thinking, "Here's this
poor kid who just wants to escape for a few hours.
Doesn't he have a right to do that – to have a little fun?"
Besides, I had just read this book on death and dying
where the author talks about how important it is to
create peace around a dying person. The book said, "no
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family quarrels," and here we were arguing. It just tore
me apart.
I love to watch movies myself. But I also felt, and still
feel, that it's too easy to escape (or let your children
escape) so you don't have to deal with things that are
hard. I'm not just talking about cancer. Whenever you
are in a struggle – any struggle – you need to set your
sights on the things that will strengthen you, not distract
you, if you're going to make it through.
On the other hand, I thought, "Matt's upset because I
am being too moralistic. I have to listen to him. Maybe
he's saying something I really need to take to heart…
After all, he's dying! But he's still my son, and I know
that escaping is not good for him. Can I risk not saying
something that might be vitally important for him?" It
was one of the hardest moments I have ever faced.
Later, Matt calmed down and said he knew where I
was coming from. He said that deep down he also felt
that watching movies was a waste of time when he had
so little left, and that he actually wanted to spend it with
other people. He even thanked me for not giving in.
This is not to say that reverence demands a long face. Far from it. After Carole, a colleague, was stricken with breast cancer, it was her wacky humor as much as anything else that kept her
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afloat. At one point she even asked everyone she knew to send her their favorite jokes, and as they arrived in the mail, she collected them in a binder "for when I'm depressed and need a good laugh." In Carole's
case, it would have been irreverent not to share in her goofiness. Shortly before she died, she told me:
I'll be honest: when the time comes (as they say) I hope
no one starts singing those hymns about floating around
in heaven. I'd think I was already descending into my
grave. You know, the words of those songs may be deep,
but for some reason, hearing them sung reminds me of
all the most depressing things in life. I know it shouldn't
be that way, but it is…I need energy, strength for the
fight.
It scares the heck out of me to think of everybody
standing around and looking all morbid or something.
I don't know; I guess every death is different. I hope
there's a good basketball game on the court outside my
window when I go, and some hefty music coming up
from downstairs…
What, then, is reverence? To explain it as the dictionary does – "honor" or "deference" – is a good start, but these words are still abstract. As far as I'm concerned, reverence needs to be experienced to be understood.
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I opened this chapter with Ann, a baby who died as a result of her parents' Rh incompatibility. Years later, after new research gave Doug and Ruby new hope, they attempted to have another child. But again things went
wrong, and the baby was stillborn. This time, however, their pain was leavened by (in Doug's words) "the redeeming effect of reverence." Given his and Ruby's high hopes, their loss was no less painful. But now, instead of loneliness and a coolly distant undertaker, there was the love of friends, the sympathy of an entire congregation, and the understanding of a pastor who reassured them that "no life, and no hope in the direction of life, is in vain." This support buoyed them so steadily, Doug says, that when they arrived at the cemetery to bury Frances – by moonlight, and carrying lanterns – he did not dread the task before him, but felt like he was "walking into a haven of light."