Mona Rae Woodworth

“I'm not afraid of death.  I'm afraid of dying”

- Mortimer from Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke

I kept searching for what to write.  I loved the passages in the reading for last week, but I just didn’t know how to expound.  I wanted my current experiences to connect with what I was reading.  Everything seemed to speak to me- even my secular reading, but what was the theme?  What did it all mean, and what did it have to do with what I was experiencing that week?

I think the theme this week is simply my grandmother. 

My grandmother is dying.  I mean that in the same sense as I am dying.  We are both marching toward our inevitable end.  Seeing grandmother slowly deteriorate has been hard at times.  Hard, because, I want to hold on to the memories I love.  For my sake, I don’t want her to change.  For her sake, I don’t want to see her so dependent on others for complete care.  And yet, I think I am better having witnessing these things.  Our time on earth is measured, but I trust in the one who holds the ruler.

Isaiah 40:6,8  “All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.  The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

Some may think it is pessimistic, but I think it is healthy to ponder death a bit more than I do.  I have 3 birth stories I love to tell.  They are full of pain and joy and socially acceptable.  What about a death story?  I know Jesus asks us to be born again in a spiritual sense.  He also asks us to die to ourselves.  Baptism itself is a picture of being buried with Christ and raised to a new life in him.  He asks us to celebrate his death every communion.  Jesus sounds a little morbid.  Now, I call him realistic.  Joyfully, victoriously, realistic.           

This week I was looking at these verses with our human life cycle in mind:

Isaiah 44:22 “Return to me for I have redeemed you.”

Isaiah 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning.”

Isaiah 48: 12 “I am the first and I am the last.”

My grandmother is mostly bed ridden.  Parkinson’s disease has made her face expressionless.  Her hands are often clenched and she cannot easily control them.  She must be fed, changed and cleaned.  How thankful I am for the people that are willing to perform a difficult, and at times unpleasant, task in love.  I recall Jesus was prophesied to suffer long ago.  Age seems to be a way most of us will share in his suffering.  My grandmother is probably not comfortable as some of her dignity is stripped away.  Because she has placed her trust in Christ, however, I have to believe that she is humbled, but not humiliated.          

 

Isaiah 50:6-7  “I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.  Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced,”

Isaiah 52: 34 “…there were many who were appalled at him- his appearance was so disfigured…”

Isaiah 53:3-5 “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering… surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows… but he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the punishment  that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

My grandmother is rarely verbally understood.  She tries to talk, but it often comes out jumbled and incomprehensible.  She seems to get frustrated and close her eyes.  It can be painful- hoping for a clear word.  Waiting- in eager expectation- only to be disappointed, and too feel the weight of her disappointment as her tongue and mind cannot always obey her desires.  It reminds me of Jesus:

 

Isaiah 53:7 “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter…”

Jesus did not open his mouth because there was nothing left to say.  He had spoken every word- and every word we needed was recorded.  His actions did the rest.  My grandmother has lived much the same way.  We do not have to wonder if she loves us.  She shows us in action and spoke it in word.  She has not left anything unsaid.  She said it all.  Her words and actions speak of a life full of Jesus.  And those words will not return empty.

Isaiah 59:21 “…my words that I have put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth or from the mouth of your children…”

Grandma participated with us in life.  Card games, presents, laughter, cooking, gentle correction, a listening ear, quiet strength, sincere and passionate prayer, shopping, haircuts, grace, bible reading, praise singing, hymn playing.  She is more than the sum of these parts.  I only know part of the equation because she has touched and continues to touch many lives.  She showed me rocking my baby was more important than dusting.  She is one of the wisest people I know. 

Over the last few years, thanks to my mother who brings us to Washington every year, I have been participating in her death.  I have wiped her mouth, fed her, changed her soiled diapers and given her a bed bath.  My daughter has participated.  We talk about the future- she may have to care for me one day.  She sees this as the normal process of life.  I realize it is one thing to philosophically acknowledge it, and quite another to live through it, or loose someone too early to death.  I don’t have answers, but I do have Isaiah.      

     

Isaiah 57:1-2 “The righteous perish and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil.  Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.”

I imagine my grandmother- when she transitions from this life to be united with her God, I imagine her sitting up from her hospital bed and unzipping her body of death- leaving it in a crumpled pile.  I imagine her gracefully standing with a “crown of beauty …and a garment of praise” (Isaiah 61:3).  I see her soaring on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31).  I see her radiating the truth of God’s love, with a smile, forever.