This week I met a woman who has cancer, the kind that has spread and makes her eligible for an experimental study.... 3 kinds of chemo drugs instead of 2. She had surgery and is miserable. Her family keeps encouraging her to fight, to try to beat this monster that is ravaging her insides. It's a tough call. As Christians, I believe that we should try to live life to its fullest. I believe that we need to give it our best shot. But I'm not so sure that we are obliged to partake of every single thing that the medical profession can throw at us. And how do you tell your loved ones "I'm tired. I'm through. I don't want to go through the pain."
Of course when someone is discouraged and hurting, perhaps they are not the at peak of their decision making capacity. But it is their life -- or the life that God gave them. Should they not be able to make that decision on their own? Does age and stage of life enter into the decision?
As I was with a loved one of this woman, I wondered aloud whether I would have the courage to fight -- or the courage to slip away. My faith tells me that there is something better to look forward to after this life, so why shouldn't I, if it's my time, go? But I could be wrong, and that little bit of doubt could change my mind so that I would hold on here as long as possible. Who knows?
Another woman did pass to new life this week, a lovely woman in her 90's. I didn't know her until these past few years when the ravages of life had already taken its toll. But I am told by others that she was a wonderful person, warm and full of life in her younger years. Her husband faced some difficult medical decisions toward the end, ones that she was incapable of making for herself. 100 years ago there would have been no decisions to make, only a vigil to keep. But God has given us the intelligence to prolong the inevitable, and we, being creatures prone to fear, are often reluctant to say no to them.
I've often said that I would rather preside at a funeral than a wedding. People probably think of me as jaded or twisted when I say that. Both are celebrations of new life. But my reasoning is this: the new life that is begun at a wedding is often completely overlooked by the enormity of planning for the ceremony itself. If couples spent 1/2 the time they spend on planning a ceremony in planning a life together, the divorce rate would probably be much lower. A funeral on the other hand is less about the ceremony and more about the remembrance of a life well lived and the send off to a better place. While it is sorrowful, it is also filled with hope. I imagine that balloons are being released and bubbles are being blown for the one who has just arrived on the far shore, even as we are gathering the flowers and committing the ashes to the dirt. So, if on any given day I had my choice between the two ceremonies, I'd take the last one.
That's not to say that I'm not REALLY looking forward to celebrating the weddings of some of the youth who I have gotten to know through the past few years. I'll be crushed if at least SOME of them don't ask me to officiate. (I've got one coming up in a couple of years -- hope they don't change their minds.) It is my hope that I might help them through to a life together that is full of joy and capable of withstanding sorrow.
Life is good, marriage can be great -- but death doesn't have to be bad either.
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