The Spiritual Lives of Dying People. Paul A. Scaglione
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hurt stretched throughout the family. While Ben battled his cancer in Louisville, only one of his siblings called. None visited. Ben suffered from a sad and painful grief. And when he died, only one brother came to the funeral.
That was the only note of regret I ever heard from Ben. But I soon realized that our times together on the sunporch were sacred times for him. That was his sacred space. As our conversations continued, Ben talked more freely about his life, his dreams about his grandson’s future, his regrets, and his hopes. He did not let his disease control his life. He dealt with it directly while understanding that life was not a survival contest; it was a journey back to God. His impending death did not frighten him. He said to me, “I know that death is simply the last step in my journey home to God. I want to make that step with confidence in Him.”
Ben began to go downhill rapidly after our first few months of conversations. He had hospital admissions for pneumonia and renal failure and received transfusions. While he was in the hospital, he was usually heavily medicated and asleep or able to communicate only briefly. I prayed with him, sometimes asking his family for time alone. On one of his last hospitalizations, he asked that I pray for two things: first, for strength to endure his suffering and death, and second, for a sense of consolation and peace for his wife, his daughter, and his grandson. He never asked for prayers for his siblings.
Seven months after I met him, Ben died. I wasn’t present at his death, but I visited with him twice during the last four days of his life. When he was close to dying, the family called me. Hospice had been called in, and he was nonresponsive. I anointed him again and prayed quietly for a peaceful journey home to God. His death was very hard on Mary; she was in shock and disbelief. She wasn’t prepared for that fatal moment, and grief overwhelmed her.
During that last visit, I broached the subject of Ben’s funeral with Mary and their daughter. Mary was still in denial about Ben’s death and said she had made no plans. I worked with his daughter and grandson and the parish bereavement committee on the plans for Ben’s funeral Mass. It included his grandson’s reading one of the Scripture selections.
After the funeral, Mary praised me effusively. She said, “You walk on water.” She showered me with gifts, both then and later, and she said repeatedly,“You were there for us.” Ironically, I may have helped Mary by creating some distance between Ben and her. In retrospect, I can see that I put myself between them and perhaps reduced Mary’s anxiety, which threatened to envelop both of them. It created a sacred space for Ben as well, even though he had been preparing himself for his death for a long time before I met him. He was confident in God’s mercy. He knew it was time for him to die.
But the anxiety of his wife and daughter was stressful for him. He worried about how they would deal with his death. He was also afraid of the family tension between him and his siblings over their mother’s death. “Did we do the right thing?” he would ask. When I reassured him of God’s love, I asked him to surrender his doubt to God and trust God’s mercy. He said, “Then I hope and pray that God’s mercy will flow over all of us.”
I wish I had had one more conversation with Ben before he died. Frequently, when a person is near death, I speak to them quietly—one on one—but in Ben’s case that conversation never happened. On my last visit, just the day before he died, I remember whispering in his ear, “Leave your anxiety about everyone in your family behind. Don’t hold on. Let go. God is waiting.” Ben did let go, and he found God waiting for him.
St. Benedict, the founder of monasticism, said, “Listen and attend with the ear of your heart.”
In so many ways, Ben instinctively knew that. He had received the gift of knowing how to listen. He attended to God with the ear of his heart. While others about him feared his death, he was not afraid. He feared only their anxiety and loss when he died.
He was a contemplative who had never lived in a monastery, and yet he knew how to contemplate the mystery of God’s love and to rejoice in it.
He died in peace, hoping that his loved ones would know the peace he had found.
Reflection
The challenges of living through the last stages of a terminal illness are daunting. It is a daily struggle to claim a direction for your soul journey to God amid the compelling voices of loved ones, doctors, family, and professional caregivers. For Ben, what remained was his grief over what will not be. Grief laden with anxiety is toxic; for a contemplative soul, it is painful beyond measure. It is love scarred by past events and burdened by time running out. As Ben slowly surrendered his grief and anxiety to God, his peace grew. It was his final gift to the family he loved.
Prayer
Lord, free us from the anxiety of our unfinished lives. Let us trust that you will bring to completion all that we hope for in this life. Let us surrender our grief and worries to you one step at a time—one person, one memory, one dream at a time. Let your peace become our final gift to our loved ones, so that in you we all may be secure. Amen.
Sarah
The Woman Who Had Questions
Sarah attended one of our autumn spiritual retreats for people who are seriously ill. These Gennesaret Retreats are named after the region where Jesus carried out most of his ministry. They are held at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky, the Trappist monastery made famous by Thomas Merton, who lived and worked there for many years. My relationship with Sarah was short and intense. Six months after I met her, she died.
Her participation in the retreat was somewhat unusual. Sarah was not actively involved in the Catholic community, although she had been baptized and raised as a Catholic. She heard about the retreat through a friend who saw an ad about it in a parish bulletin. Sarah’s illness was pancreatic cancer. That form of cancer usually brings death within a year, but amazingly she had survived for more than three years. Sarah met with the retreat nurse coordinator, who did a medical history and evaluation that determined she was healthy enough to participate in the retreat.
I did the spiritual evaluation of her life situation, her relationship with her illness and with God, and the anxieties that might inhibit her from receiving and hearing what we offer on the retreat. I always try to do these spiritual assessments in person, but because of miscommunication, Sarah and I missed an appointment at a local coffee shop. I called her with an apology and offered another time to meet with her to do the spiritual assessment. She declined. She insisted that a phone interview was sufficient, and in it she set the direction of our conversation. From the very beginning, it was evident that this was a woman who was in control.
She was an unmarried woman in her fifties. She was very matter-of-fact about her disease. Her mother had died a year earlier, and she had assumed full care for her mother during her mother’s final years. She claimed initially that she had no problem doing that, though I later learned she struggled being her mother’s primary caregiver. She had three sisters and two brothers, but it was Sarah alone who provided her mother with total care. In the course of nursing her mother, she realized that her own health was deteriorating. For the last two years of her mother’s life, Sarah knew she had pancreatic cancer. She did not let her illness interfere with her caregiving; she stoically carried the burden. Later she would tell me that her mother’s death was a somber path to follow as she lived with her own fatal disease.
When I asked whether she had ever been on a retreat, she reported that she had been on only one, as a very young girl. When I asked her about her faith, she flatly replied, “I have more questions than answers.” As I later learned, that brusque comment spoke volumes about Sarah. She was a skeptic. I sensed that she had been alienated and estranged from God and the church, but I didn’t know why. Gradually, I learned that she was searching—for answers, but also love.
At the retreat, we had several people who were very verbal, but Sarah was quiet, guarded, and introspective. She was clearly reflective but not comfortable sharing herself. When the talkative ones insisted that everyone should introduce him or herself, she announced that she had a terminal illness. Nothing more.
I eventually discovered that Sarah had always managed her own businesses. She described herself as an entrepreneur.