July 20, 2010
This morning, the social worker and the RN in charge of my Hospice care came to visit, and we began to acquaint ourselves with each other. My cough is huge and deep and makes my ribs hurt. After a bit, my throat feels slashed. So, conversing through that, we commenced. The most difficult part of the Hospice is the matter-of-fact approach – the seeming inevitability of how one’s end will be. They have trod this path many times, I am newly begun. We talk, and I think, “This is my person that is under discussion; I don’t want to be turned, lifted, medicated with suppositories or under the tongue as needed and so forth. . .I don’t want to be anywhere near where this is to be going on”. (It is likely that one day I will be filled with proper gratitude for all the help available) The emphasis is on controlling pain, and that is a good and noble thing, but the mental picture of myself in the future, shuffling from bed to bath, hanging on to the walls so I don’t fall over, coughing and honking onward to the end that completely undoes me.
Both Janna and John-paul are here and Heidi is taking time from work to come, too. When we gather, a distinct family trait is that cooking and baking the family recipes seems to calm everyone. There is always some lovely creation beginning or ending in the kitchen. Other calming and lovely things in this difficult year are the incredibly grand flowers that have sprung up in the gardens. One looks at the intricacies of a sunflower and considers the Creator who thought of it for the first time. That act, multiplied more times than can be imagined, presents a picture of what has been woven together into our earthly home. I too, am a part of it all, and I accept being fearfully and wondrously made.
In the hymn “O God beyond All Praising” the poet speaks most eloquently:
in time must surely die,
its fragile bloom surrender
to you, the Lord most high;
but hidden from all nature
the eternal seed is sown
-though small in mortal stature,
to heaven’s garden grown:
for Christ, your gift from heaven,
from death has set us free,
and we through him are given
the final victory.