Bookends of Life

 I am a hospice volunteer and I am a Grandfather. Thus, I spend a lot of time with the very young and the very old. The struggles of their lives seem at times similar, though that is not real.  

I want that glass of water that I see across the room. How do I get it?

I understand what you just said to me. I want to reply but I don't know the words. Or, I know the words but cannot make my mouth say them. 

I should go to the bathroom. Too late. I am embarrassed or ashamed to tell you. 

I miss that person who comes to my room. Where is he? Will she be back today? 

I wait in my room until someone takes me somewhere and tells me what to do. Sometimes I do it. Sometimes I don't. 

It seems to you quite boring that I spend so much time staring out the window. I am learning, retaining, not retaining, thinking. thinking. 

When was the last time someone cried because they were happy to see you

Not counting the day you were born. 

When one is a hospice volunteer, it happens all the time. 

Hanging out by the exit

 Notes while at the funeral of a friend: 

This is how it all ends, as a piece of paper in hands at your funeral. a few lines about the things that mattered. 

Family+faith+providing+career+hobbies. 

10:30 am Not many here, but I;m early. I suppose attendance at a funeral is driven by when we die. Churches are packed when the dead is under 30. Die at 85 and the only people left are your pastor, your family and a few others. 

10:45 am Big clap of feedback from the AV system of this little church (aging janitor type guy in pony tail finally figures it out).

Guitar instrumental very nice... In the Garden. Old Rugged Cross. A very plain Baptist church, like those I grew up in.  Painted pallets nailed to wall behind pastor. (an homage to warehouses?) One wooden cross. 

As is the custom with all Christian faiths, the Pastor proclaims that the deceased is in heaven (though he does not really know this, and does not know that he doesn't know). Nice sermon and obviously one who cared about this man. 

This is a real funeral, though program calls it a celebration of life. There is a body and a casket and tears and a wife and a preacher. Not a jar of ashes to be found anywhere. Good move. 

11:32 am Cue the mourner who does not know to turn off a phone when inside a church attending a religious ceremony. 

11:33 am In the silence of the sanctuary, you can hear the same phone vibrating as voicemail arrives.  

I chat with the guitarist on the way out. He is talented and knew the proper decorum for a funeral. There is hope for his generation, as mine hangs around the exit, waiting for people like him, and the pastor, to show us the way home. 

The Five String Banjo at the cracking of the day

 Today I watched the musical Camelot, the Richard Burton version. In it Merlin helps young Arthur in his education by getting him to "think like" other creatures. The owl, the perch, the hawk. 

I don't know what this has to do with the banjo, but my brain is chewing on it. Perhaps I need to think like a banjo. What would that be? "It's dark in here", "Hang on shoulder, hang on wall, hang on shoulder, hang on wall," "My strings itch".  

The more I practice and the better I become, the more private my playing. Another counterintuitive aspect of my life. Having spent my business career on stage, my retirement career is much more in the shadows.The gooder I get, the smaller the audience.  

It is indeed the most intense aspect of my life. 

At times even more so than hospice care, or "waking the dead" as one of my patients likes to call it.

It burns me good. 

Sunday worship, western rim of the known world

Two conversations an hour apart. One at a jail, the other at a nursing home. One with a man, the other with a woman. One is dying. One is locked up. Both were in tears.

"I miss my kids. I finally understand how much I hurt them"

"I miss my wife, I wish I could see her one more time to tell her that I love her".

Small things

I volunteer at times with hospice patients. At the end of life, and at the beginning, it is the small things that we often take for granted that can mean so much. Being warm. Being able to sleep throughout the night without discomfort. Having a loved one nearby.

Today I was with a man who wanted just one thing, relief from an itch. He got it.

Those tiny things we don't think about. When was the last time you gave thanks for being able to quench your thirst without assistance? Or walk to the mailbox under your own power? There is so much we don't think about. St. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians to give thanks in all things. For all things and in all things. I don't do it like I should, but my friend today gave me a wonderful reminder.

Deep Winter

I love winter. We say that a lot in Minnesota. Perhaps we do. Perhaps not.

We are reaching the point of the really hard days of the season we love. Highs around zero. Lows somewhere down on the minus scale. It is mid-February and the sun is much higher in the sky than at Christmas, though that fact has not yet made a difference in our temperatures. That will come.

This is the waiting time.

This period of winter is like many times of our lives. Waiting for something. For first grade. For a new bike. For a drivers license. For marriage. For a new job. Waiting for a sign. Some signal that what you wish for will come to be.

I am a hospice volunteer and just spent 15 months visiting a patient with a terminal illness, who became a friend. Waiting to die. I stopped by twice a week to chat, about his family, sports, occasionally his faith. He had the type of illness that shows no real symptoms to others until the very end. As predicted, that was how it played out. On Monday he was happy and alert. On Thursday he was much weaker and knew his last few days were upon him. On Saturday his body was dead.

I have tried to put myself in his place and imagine this period of waiting. For some it is a period of fear and dread. For my friend it was a time to enjoy with family and friends, to ponder his life in its triumphs and regrets, to read, to sleep, to meet a new nurse, to welcome a priest bearing the blessed eucharist. One day folded into the next, one season to the next. Now he is where there are no seasons, and no waiting, only joy and love in its purest of pure forms.

I look around my house for a sign of spring. The snow is piling up. The ice on the lake is thicker than last week. No birds in the air or squirrels in the trees. But the sun is higher in the sky today than yesterday. For a while that will suffice.

Taking it with you....

Last week I chatted with a hospice patient. One who insisted he did not know why he was there and that he felt fine. Not resigned to his fate but a fighter who still has a few rounds left in him.

Somehow we got on the subject of retirement and finances and money. He told me... " I never wanted a lot of money, just enough to pay my bills. I never wanted to be rich. All the rich think about is how to keep what they have." That may not be an exact quote but it's close.

I thought about that statement over the weekend. I suppose there is some truth to it, but it also is full of error.

I know wealthy people who think a lot about how best to give their money away. How to use it for the Lord's work. How to be the stewards that He wants. I really dont know any who only focus on how to keep it, though I'm sure there are some.

For me, dollars are like rocks strewn along the road to righteousness. Some days there are just a few decisons to make and they are simple ones. They are like pebbles, little annoyances. Other days there are big decisions, boulders. They don't block the road, they never do. But they always distract, make you look the wrong way, or take a different path.

I have never heard anyone say that having more money brought them closer to Christ, though millions would testify that being without it certainly did.

Parting Gift

A hospice patient plays the harmonica. "Would you like to hear something?" Plays Blue eyes crying in the rain. I hum along.

a revisit

I spent some time last night with my friend who was mentioned in my July post. The one with the rare muscle disease. I have seen her four or five times since then and we've become even better friends.

As i watched her try and eat, it occured to me that in a small way, she is experiencing a bit of the suffering of Christ. When on the cross he was trapped, in agonizing pain, unable to move. Could not feed himself, could not wipe his face, could not pick up a cup of water, could not cover himself.

While my friend is not nailed to a cross, she is also trapped and cannot move. She has to be fed, and covered and watched over. tapping out a few sentences takes an hour.

I told her what i was thinking, that she was experiencing a tiny bit of the suffering of Christ. I don't know if she agreed with me or not. She just looked at me. We shared a prayer. I went home. Got a glass of water all by myself. Fed myself. Put myself to bed.

The small things become the big things

On weekends I volunteer at a hospice. I do little things like greet visitors, give tours, make coffee, answer the phone. Some days I do bigger things, comfort a family, be a companion to the dying, become their last new friend.

A few weeks ago I watched a one-year old proudly step across a room. She is my granddaughter and she is mastering the skill of walking. It reminded me of how common daily things we take for granted. A skill that it has taken her months to master she will quickly become accustomed to.

For many of us there will come a day when all these little things we think of as easy, become hard. Picking up a cup when thirsty and successfully putting it back down. Wrapping oneself in a blanket when cold. Not drooling on yourself. Being able to say "thank you", for a kindness. 

These are big deals on the front side of life and perhaps even bigger on the back side. All that time in between, we just do them.

With the last of her strength

I have a new friend who has a terrible illness. A rare muscular disorder.


She cannot talk or walk or feed herself. She can only move her hands a little. She talks by pointing to letters on a keyboard. A simple sentence can take minutes and the frustration can bring tears to her eyes. It is a board very similar to the one below.

Her body is falling apart but not her soul.

She types out a message and asks that I send it as a text to her brother. A happy birthday wish. I do and see a bit of a smile on her face and tears on her cheeks.

She types, " Thx big time"
"God bless u"



As her pointer quivers in her failing hand, she points to these letters. P  R  A  Y.

She wants me to pray with her. I am a stranger to her. She does not know how I will respond, or if I am a Christian. But she is so helpless she is long past the point of shyness or embarrassment. So I pray and her tears flow again, not ones of frustration but of joy and happiness.

After this she asks me to read the Bible to her. Isaiah 54:14 " In righteousness you will be established; tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you."

She types again. 'God sent u"

And I think, no, God sent you to me as a reminder of how much I take for granted and how little time I have spent serving people like me new friend. On this Sunday morning I can go to church, sing a song, say a prayer, or I can not. This friend, with her last bit of strength, uses a failing finger to point me in the way I should go. As I leave she types, 'Luv Jesus'.