Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

One Year Ago: Nate’s Fear

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Last year on this date, Nate spoke the words, “I’m afraid.”

We didn’t realize he was only four days from his death, although all of us knew the cancer would claim his life in the not-too-distant future. Nate knew it, too, but he was still walking, talking and clinging to the semblance of a routine at our house. Forty-eight hours from that day he would climb into bed for the last time, but none of us thought we were that close.

My calendar says Nate took his daily walk down our quiet lane that day along with several of us and his cane, but none of us knew it would be his last outing. By the following day he could no longer support himself on his weakened legs without a son on each side, although he kept trying, cause for great concern among the rest if us.

It was late afternoon when Nate whispered to me in a raspy voice that he was afraid. He said it twice. I thought the reality of death approaching was what had put fear in his heart, but he said no, it was fear of the pain. He’d been in severe pain for so long, particularly those last few days, that he knew he couldn’t handle an increase.

At that point we both realized he needed better pain meds. Hospice nurses responded with morphine, and Nate’s body responded with relief. It was a relief for all of us. Earlier in the day, Nelson had told his father, “You know I’d do anything for you, Papa.” We all felt that way. The sad truth was we were out of options. Radiation had done what it could, and chemo wasn’t even on the table. A team of learned doctors had concluded their treatment, and Nate’s life would soon end. The only task left was to manage what seemed like pain run rampant, and the Hospice nurses said they would do that.

Death will come to 100% of us, and it will most likely be preceded by pain. We may not all suffer from cancer and may have less or more than 42 days of warning, but in the end, we’ll all die a physical death. Many of us worry about what that might be: an accident? a disease? an infection? These are question marks without answers until we get there.

Nate needn’t have worried. He had one more difficult day, after which the morphine overwhelmed his pain completely and brought peaceful sleep. But what about the rest of us? Our question marks remain, a test for how thoroughly we can trust God to set it up just right for us.

For now, though,  it’s better that we not know.

“God shall wipe away all tears….  and there shall be no more…. pain.” (Revelation 21:4)

The Journal: Will it be widowhood?

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I remember the first moment the word “widow” entered my mind. It was about a year ago, just a few days before Nate and I were told he had terminal pancreatic cancer. I was sitting in a warm tub in the early morning hours after Nate had had a bad night with intense back pain. He was finally asleep, and I grabbed the chance to decompress (and think) behind closed doors.

The tub wasn’t even full before I was weeping, panicky at the unknowns in our immediately future. What if Nate really had cancer? What if he died? What if I became a widow?

Feeling isolated as a woman who’d just moved 110 miles away from her sister, her girlfriends, her prayer groups and her church, I clutched. But God, the tender Father, interrupted that downward thought-spiral by flooding my mind with a list of caring friends. These were women who would come to me if I asked, women who were faithful to God but also to me. They were people I could call at any hour, confident they would give me good counsel and be willing shoulders to cry on. In thinking of them, I knew I would make it… even if I became a widow.

When I climbed out of the tub, I felt much better than when I’d climbed in, even though our circumstances hadn’t changed. But God had spoken to my need, demonstrating again how close he was. And that’s one of the awesome things about him. He’s intimately aware of where we stand at every given moment, knowing precisely what we need. My focus, and also that of Nate and I together as a couple, had been riveted on his health issues for many months. God knew my meltdown was coming, and he knew exactly when. He was ready.

I’ve learned God is practical and that he faithfully rushes toward our needs with sufficiency. He perfectly measures out ideas and vigor to cover every situation. As a doctor matches drugs to a patient’s illness, God matches aid to his children’s crises.

A sensible daily prayer for all of us is, “Lord, prepare me for whatever’s coming, and when it gets here, show me what to do.”

And he will.

He did it during my bath-time meltdown and has repeatedly rescued me throughout the last bumpy year. I still crave and pray for his preparation, because new crises will surely come. But I’ve witnessed how superbly he answers that prayer, and I don’t ever want to be caught weeping over bad news without having first invited God to get me ready for it.

As for my God-inspired list of women supporters, as I thought about each name he’d given me, I realized how amazing his help really was. Every single one on his list was a widow.

“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.”

(2 Corinthians 3:4-5)

The Journal: Bad News from a Cell Phone

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With hindsight being 20/20, we now see how Nate’s invisible cancer was present and active throughout the summer before his September diagnosis. But it wasn’t until the test results from his pre-op physical came in, that alarm bells finally began to clang. His liver numbers “were off,” prompting the doctor to order a scan of the liver and pancreas, located next to each other.

Journal words tell the tale: “While we were in the office of a new orthopedic doctor getting a third opinion on Nate’s spine, one of our other doctors called Nate’s cell. ‘The results of your scan indicate a mass on the liver,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘But don’t jump to any conclusions. Tissue is tissue, and we won’t know anything conclusive until we do a biopsy.’ The doctor told Nate he’d made an appointment for him and then said, ‘Be sure you keep it.’

At the end of the conversation the phoning doctor asked Nate, ‘Do you have any questions?’ I would have asked, ‘How likely is it the mass is cancer?’ but Nate said, ‘Will the biopsy hurt?’ He’d already begun his time in denial, and the pain question was all he could think to ask.”

A few minutes later as we stood in the hall awaiting the elevator, Nate was trembling from head to toe, his shoulders, his cheeks, his hands, but no wonder. He’d just been hard-hit with the words “mass” and “biopsy”, two words no one wants to hear.

“How’re you feeling?” I asked, enfolding him in a hug.

“It’s OK. We’ll get through it,” he said.

Our words promised we wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, but our eyes said we already had. When we got to the car, we listened to an earlier phone message left by the same doctor who’d called in the examining room:

“I need to talk to you right away. Here’s my direct number. And if I don’t answer, here’s my pager. And if for some reason that one won’t work, here’s the number for the girl at the desk, who will come and find me.” We knew we were in a serious mess.

As we drove from Chicago to Michigan I said, “If they need to do surgery on your liver, I want to give you a chunk of mine. People can do that, you know. And I really mean it.”

Nate’s response was off-subject. “I think I’ve used up my allotted pain meds for this 24 hours and know I’m going to have a bad night.”

Both of us had become aware that a storm was about to hit and knew we’d need a place to run and hide. We’d also need God to show us how to spot his blessings in the rubble, because at that moment, we couldn’t see a single one.

“My people will live in… undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be.” (Isaiah 32:18-20)