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Christmas is a wondrous event and a great celebration. There is much
joy in getting together with family and friends, exchanging gifts, feasting
and drinking and generally having a good time. For many also it is a time
of missing people from our lives: family members living away interstate
or overseas who will not be home for Christmas, friends and family who
have died and are now part of the celebration in memory. Particularly
my thoughts are with those for whom this is the first Christmas since
the death of their brother, sister, mother, father, wife, husband, child,
relative, or friend. The first Christmas, the first birthday etc are particularly
significant.
It is in this experience of loss and of missing the presence of someone
very loved that I think 'God with us' takes on another depth. When the
Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14)
God became human in every aspect of our lives, not just the good parts.
In Jesus is God who is in everything with us: who feels pain and loss,
grief and sadness with us. In this gift of love is God who understands,
who knows our loneliness and our anger. Yet even this may be no consolation.
Perhaps we will be touched by someone who cares for us in the darkest
moments. Maybe we will see God revealed in such a friend.
There is an opportunity for each of us at Christmas to remember those
among our family and friends who have lost someone very close to them
in this year. We can remember them in prayer. We could send them a card
and let them know that we are remembering their loss. We could ring or
visit them. The wondrous gift of love at Christmas calls forth from us
generosity in giving not only presents but presence, the presence of 'God
with us'.
I leave you with a story of deep human love, a story told by Dr Frank
Brennan, a palliative care physician, based in Sydney. It is from
his talk on the Radio National Health Report
about his experiences with terminally ill patients and their families.
I had met her at the main hospital. She had metastatic
colorectal cancer. She had received extensive chemotherapy. Her disease
had progressed and her options were rapidly diminishing. She was becoming
thinner. I talked to her about palliative care and what the hospice had
to offer. She agreed to come over to the hospice.
Later that week I saw her there. She was in a single room. She lay weakly.
The bed covers seemed too big for her. Her mouth was dry. She spoke slowly.
After discussing her symptoms I said to her that I thought her time was
approaching. She said, "Well, what can I say?" I asked her what
was the hardest aspect of her illness. She replied, "Leaving my husband".
I met Jack twice over the next days. On each occasion he sat by her bed
speaking as softly as she, his eyes burning with suffering.
By the week's end she had deteriorated further. She was now unrouseable
and dying. I entered the room. Jack sat, as usual, by her bed his right
hand resting on hers. Next to him was their son. I explained the process
of dying and said that I did not think it would be long. There was a pause.
Finally Jack looked up at me and asked "Doctor, can't you give her
a needle?"
I had heard the question before from relatives of other patients, at other
deathbeds. I knew how the sentence would end. I was ready with an answer.
I knew that the sentence would end with "a needle to end her suffering"
or "a needle to put her out of her misery". My answer, prepared
and clear would be no, that ethically and legally we cannot cause anyone
to die or hasten their death and that the natural process of dying, already
progressing, would inevitably lead to her death.
But the sentence did not end that way. The sentence ended in a way that
was so different, unexpected and on a plane that was so separate from
what I anticipated. He completed the sentence by saying, "Doctor,
can't you give her a needle to wake her so that we can speak one last
time?"
I stood there, silently I reached out my hand to his hand that lay on
hers. Three hands.
I felt many things, humbled that my expectations, the grooved furrow of
the plough across the field of my working day was not prepared for this
question. That the question itself arose deep from his anguish of loss.
That a lay person could honestly believe that we could do such a thing,
wake a dying patient to speak for one last time. Have we so raised the
image of modern medicine that doctors are seen to be capable of the miraculous?
And I began to think of language — the language of our patients and
their loved ones and occasionally a comment or question can be both practical
and metaphorical, literal, and figurative. And how language can rarely
capture the exquisite mystery present in the process of dying. Or is it
so rare?
Maybe we need to be more open to the asides, the whispered thought, the
silence that so regularly envelops it all. And finally it reminded me
that talk of death is not nor should every be clichéd, that every
encounter, just like every death, is unique and that our confident anticipation
of the content of all encounters rests on a flawed premise. The premise
of sameness.
We will be surprised and humbled, moved and challenged. And rightly so.
"No", I replied, "sadly there is no such needle. I cannot
wake her now. But Jack, talk to her, she'll know you're here, talk to
her of everything, everything that's in your heart". Quietly, and
in a whisper to match her breathing, he replied, "I have been speaking
of nothing else".
LINK: www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2006/1745458.htm#transcript
Wishing you all a blessed Christmas and may the gift of love unfold peace
and joy to your hearts and lives. May the presence of 'God with us' be
your present this Christmas.
Rosemary
The
LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior;
God will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in love,
God will sing joyfully because of you.
Zephaniah 3:17
 Rosemary
Canavan lives in Adelaide. Her qualifications include a Bachelor
of Arts major in Psychology and two Bachelors degrees in Theology, the
most recent an Honours degree in New Testament studies. She has two adult
children.
Photo Credit:
Title background photo from stock.xchnge
Photographer: Piotr Lewandowski, Poland
What are your thoughts on Rosemary's reflection?
You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.
Rosemary can be contacted at: rosemary@catholica.com.au
©2006
Rosemary Canavan
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