“But to what will I compare
this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to
one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed,
and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating
nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’;
the Son of Man came eating and
drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
At that time Jesus said, “I
thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these
things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;
yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over
to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one
knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal
the Father.
“Come to me, all you that are
weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
***
Heading back to our flights to
our respective towns, my Uncle Dave said to me,
“I never knew how indignant
and frustrated Uncle John had become over caregiving for Grampa. It's like he
has no compassion left for Dad.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking
about that.” I said.
I had been thinking a lot
about it actually, about the whole thing, of caregiving, of personalities, of
the meanings of lives, and quality of life and death, about what we are called
to do, and what we are not.
My Uncle John had been
caregiving for my Grampa for almost as long as I have been alive. No one ever
expected Grampa, who had smoked, and drank, ate like every meal was his last,
and sat like a couch potato to the extent that once a little boy asked if he
ever moved, no one ever expected my Grampa to live until 93. My Uncle Dave,
said, “It just went on too long,” of my Uncle John’s caregiving, and I wondered
if deep down he also knew, what had gone on too long was my Grampa’s life. I
agreed but I also thought, there was a way my Uncle John chose his own reality,
I said, “He could have asked for help.” Uncle Dave defensively jumped in, “It’s
not like there were not frequent offers,” and I responded, “I just hope
someday, Uncle John is able to realize why he gave and gave up so much.
You have to ask the question, what does it give you? There had to have been
some reason for Uncle John, to do it so long, maybe honor, maybe duty, maybe
guilt, maybe love. He couldn’t see it now, but I did.
I think the story that best
describes Uncle John is this. There was one snowy evening that I got stuck on a
layover in Detroit.
My parents said to call my Uncle John, but I admitted I had always been a
little afraid of Uncle John. I remember my parents tell him to watch his
language in front of us girls, and with a pipe-smokers-teeth and a beard long
before it was ever popular, he seemed a little gruff. Uncle John told me he’d
pick me up and having worked for General Motors for decades described the make
and model of his car to me his niece, who, might have been better off with
descriptors like, black, and small. My luggage got lost, as did my Uncle and I
from each other for awhile and finally when I got in the car, he was super
frustrated, and I wondered what I had gotten myself into. We went to his and my
Grandpa’s place, though my Grampa was visiting my parents at the time, and my
Uncle John made me dinner, all three brothers of my dad’s family are cooks, and
my Uncle has two bookcases filled with cookbooks and has since written his own,
seasonings in alphabetical order line and decorate his walls, and with chopping
and stirring, I ate the best pot-pie ever, in the comfort of his little table
in his tiny apartment. I think this is how my Uncle must have been toward my
Grampa. A rough exterior but action, upon action, of love. But right now my Uncle was so empty he had nothing else to give, and while maybe we could
have checked in more, people choose how they spend their energy, and the moment
we forget it’s a choice, we forget that it’s not all on us to play God. It is
not on us to take the yoke from another and be another person’s source of rest,
and comfort. We can give, we can love, we can fulfill duty, we can try to
rectify guilt, though that only deepens the wounds, but if we believe we are
doing it for another, other than acknowledging what it brings ourselves, we are
playing God.
I had arrived a day earlier
than my family and it was my first hospital visit, not as a hospital chaplain,
not as a pastor, but as family, and it felt strange to be walking down the
hall, less out of pastoral duty and more out of familial love. Yet, through
experience, there were ways I felt comfortable - waiting outside the door while
he yelled in pain at being moved, letting him blow into a tissue and wiping the
end his giant Schneider nose, feeding him Ensure and iced apple juice by
angling the straw down to the last sips, such that my finger almost touched his
lips and the prickle of his unkempt grey beard on his thinning face, strikingly
like my own father. Experience gave me too the know how to ask questions and
wait, and listen, as between, each, word, he, caught, his, breaths, of, air.
Though slow enough to almost stall, there was a way our conversation came with
more ease than perhaps it ever had, it was a setting in which we rarely found
ourselves, one-on-one, with lots of time and me in his space rather than he in
mine with my family and I scheduled from one engagement to the next.
I could tell by the way his
thick wooly white eyebrows raised, letting me peak at the blue of his eyes,
that he was glad and surprised to see me but I could tell by the lack of verbal
expression how tired he was. I went over and kissed him on the head, an
endearment we called stealing kisses when I was little, and we kept score.
“Grampa, I think I will be able to steal a lot without Grampa getting me back,”
He asked, How is the preaching for the Most Beautiful Reverend?” he asked,
applying his most recent endearment. I told him a little about me, and then
shifted and asked, “How are you doing today, Grampa?” He used to respond,
“Great, now that I see you, Pal!” but in the hospital he began, “Well Pal,” and
then slowly he spoke of his father, and his father’s father’s brutal suicides.
“Do you think they had depression?” I asked hinting and thinking to myself, I
bet my grandpa too has had undiagnosed depression much of his life and still today
at ninety-three and I guess there is no way to treat that now on his death bed.
“Buddy, if I had a gun, I’d do the same,” he half joked, finally answering my
initial question. I wasn’t surprised; he never has had really the will to live
a full life but has ended up living a long one. And then he said, going back to
his father, “I wonder if it was me that made him kill himself.” And here again,
is where hospital chaplain Katy and granddaughter Katy abutted. I had to honor
his own reality but I wanted to tell him it was ridiculous.
“Why do you think that
Grampa?” I asked,
“Well, I told him to get out
of my life.”
“How long after you said that
did he commit suicide?” I asked trying gauge the extent of my Grampa’s trauma.
“Oh years, later. After I got out
of the Navy. The Navy really gave me independence.”
“What happened that you had to
take your dad out of your life,”
“Well, your Grampa couldn’t do
anything right, he controlled everything and was really demanding and angry.
That’s why I never told my boys what they would do. I wanted them to make their
own decisions.”
“And they have Grampa, and
they all did well.”
“They did, they all did,
and John took care of me so well. I didn’t know how good I had it until I went
to the nursing home.”
“Grampa,” I asked resisting
his earlier statement, “Do you think if you committed suicide it would be our
fault?”
“Oh no, Buddy.” Grampa said
with reassurance.
“Grampa, likewise, I think
there are ways that when someone commits suicide or even dies, or is dying, that
we question every thing we did or didn’t do. It’s never someone else’s
fault.”
I was telling my Grampa this,
and telling myself. I didn’t know he and I could have conversions like this, we
had them a few times about other things, about war and pacifism, but not the
personal, ‘why’s,’ like this. I didn’t know he wanted to talk. Did he not share
before because he didn’t think he was worth anything, as his dad had told him?
Here my Grampa, an atheist, was in a way confessing, confessing a myriad of
things, and I was his Reverend listening, but I was also his granddaughter the
bearer of his history. Should I have reached out more, I wondered guiltily and
wished I had, because I love stories, and they are even more special when it’s
your Grampa. I wished I had for the gift it would have given me. But even with
things as lovely as stories, as gnawing as guilt, and as deep as confessions, I
knew I could not carry my grandfather’s yoke, just as his father’s is not my
grandfather’s to carry, moreover a yoke of past wishes is likewise not mine to
try to resolve. To do so is to forget the source of comfort, the true source of
true rest, and to believe that we are that source. My Grampa began to tell me,
“The, Navy, really, gave, me,” but he got too tired and I kissed his head and
let him sleep mid-thought, and with his sleep, I let the story rest, perhaps
forever. In his decision to sleep, and mine to kiss, all time stretched into an
eternal now, of coming, all ye’ that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
I walked away, knowing this
was the yoke of comfort I carry.
