love : life :: curious : death

26 June 2012 4 comments
I love life. I am not contemplating suicide. Really.

But sometimes I am the smallest bit impatient to face death.

2007, Hayden Lake, ID

My grandfather is dying right now. He may live through the night, but it won't be long until he passes away from life into death.

His name is Argonne, but most people call him by his abbreviated middle name, "Joe." I've been calling him Pampa since before I could pronounce "Grandpa." He was born in 1922 and just celebrated his 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago. The family game in my tribe is a card game called cribbage and Pampa is an amazing cribbage player. I've never seen anyone beat him. And he never let me win, either.

I have really fond memories of him and my dad fishing in Coeur d'Alene Lake, while my sister and I paddled around the dock and scared away all the fish.

The last time I saw him was in June 2007. He was still wearing the thick suspenders and trucker's cap he always wore. He had a scruffy white beard and glassy blue eyes. He laughed just as I remembered him laughing when I was a child.

I think of him there on his hospital bed at home, with a hospice nurse, head laid back and chest exposed to the open air. He's tired. He's very tired. He says as much. He says he's tired and he's ready to go be with Fran---my grandmother. Thirty-seven years ago he lost her to cancer after 28 years of marriage.

I think of him at 90 years old, finally facing death. It's not the first time death has been close, but it will likely be the last. And I envy him a bit. Because I am sometimes the smallest bit impatient to face death

because

death is THE existential problem. It is the heavy concrete base upon which we must build our philosophies, activities, families, and legacies.

I have this idea that the quality of life is measured by the experience of death. And so how can I know if all of this work, this life, is worth anything until I can secure a successful death? Death lived (so to speak) in hypothesis or conjecture is meaningless. I want to face it, to have a certainty that my life is ending, and only in that moment will I know myself and the quality of my spirit.

I won't rush the experience by drinking bleach or walking on train tracks. I'm intensely curious, but only a little bit impatient-- certainly not eager.

In the time between this moment and the hour of my death, I remember that

since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death---that is, the devil---and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. //  [hebrews2.14-15] 

4 comments:

  • Matthew Smith said...

    Kessia, I'm so sorry to hear about your grandpa. It sounds like he's been an important part of your life. I'll be thinking and praying for you through this tough time.

    P.S. I loved that picture!

  • Jessica said...

    I (more than) once struggled with why I should keep living, when the life beyond death was all worth living for. I'm eager to hug grandpas and Grape and cousins who faced death before they had chance to face life. But when we lose matriarchs and patriarchs and fantastic cribbagers, it reminds me that I have a tiny little role in becoming a part of the reason someone else remembers their desire to live way beyond the blue.

    I know you know all this. But also know that I'm praying, and anticipating tears turned to joy when the new Emancipation Proclamation of death fearers is stamped and sealed.

    You're a woman after God's heart, Kessia Reyne - and He has yours.

  • Andrea said...

    Thank you for sharing your thoughts during this time. I'm sorry about your grandpa too. And you are right about facing and accepting death giving you something to live for. In talking with a few who were facing it, I felt like they had a secret I was only beginning to understand. But your verse at the end reminded me that when Jesus faced death, He gave us a little head-start on that secret.

  • Anthony said...

    Death is such a strong part of what we pursue in our Christian walk: death to self, death to the flesh, death to the world, and death in water. I understand how you feel and I must say that I resonate.

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