I have told this story below many times, and I will keep telling it.
Years ago, I’d visited a patient and his family multiple times over several months. As is often the case on a first visit, I wouldn’t have guessed this husband and father had cancer and would die before summer’s end. He was tending his garden when I, his hospice chaplain, arrived. That would be the last time I saw him outside. A visit or two later, he stayed on the couch, and eventually couldn’t leave his hospital bed. His loving wife was attentive and so overwhelmed. On several visits, more of my time was spent with her than the “patient.”
With her worries.
With her need to pray.
With holding her hand while a nurse adjusted her husband’s medication or treated places where his skin threatened to break down.
Their adult kids rotated staying with Mom and Dad, trying to give their mother—now less a wife and more a caregiver—a little time off. One of their children wasn’t present in my first visits, but everyone mentioned him. I’ll call him John.
John was in prison. It was nothing serious, except that anything leading to prison for a few years is serious. He was described as a good son, a loner, a guy with a temper, and a quiet person that was often a magnet for trouble. He was soon to be released, with the family wondering if he’d make it home to see his father. Sure, he phoned his parents, but a farewell in person trumped a phone six ways to Sunday.
There was another problem.
One of John’s brothers had a restraining against him. They couldn’t be in the same room. Their mother described their sibling relationship as “love and hate” and “difficult.” Families, the best or worst of them, are complicated. Grudges can be hoarded like gold coins. The details of old resentments may fade, but continue to create rifts as wide as the Mississippi.
The brothers’ disagreements broke her heart.
John was released from prison while his father remained alive.
Several of the children, including the brother John had “difficulties” with, had become reluctant about visiting their father. It’s easy to criticize or judge if that happens, but it can be tough to return home when you’ve said goodbye a dozen times. It’s painful when a parent’s body—once vibrant, once strong—is ruined. A month before there had been conversations; now their father was grimly silent. And the other children had their families, along with jobs and non-stop obligations.
I moments after the father died. I was present when John, who a week before had been behind bars a hundred miles away, softly told his mother that he’d take care of his father.
In the still, fragile seconds after his father’s death, John approached the hospital bed in the middle of the living room. He tenderly bathed the man that gave him life. John was huge, a Hollywood stereotype of a convict, sporting swirls of tattoos undulating over weight room biceps. His thick shoulder muscles rippled as he gently hoisted and adjusted his father’s body. Then he dressed his Dad before the funeral home staff arrived to remove the “remains.”
His mother cried in the hallway, mostly averting her eyes.
The other children were on the way.
John had muttered to me that he wanted his father to look as nice as possible before his mother came back into the room, and before his brothers and sisters—except for one—would arrive.
I don’t know what happened to John after that day.
I like to imagine he and his brother mended their relationship. But maybe not, since complicated families are often permanently . . . complicated. Perhaps, months later, ever the hothead, John got in trouble with the law again.
But for a few treasured moments, I witnessed a son tend to his father. I watched a bear of a man clean and dress the cancer-wrecked body of his beloved parent.
With the loss-of-spouse grief support groups I lead before my retirement, I invited participants to share about their beloved during one of the group’s sessions. It’s like show-and-tell from elementary school days. Show pictures. Tell where you were married or about your favorite family vacation.
Reveal just a bit about the person. Tell their story.
Typically, one or more of the group’s participants couldn’t envision talking about their loved one. It would be too hard. And I didn’t force them. Nope . . . never. But I did (as gently as possible) reassure them that telling a few stories about their loved ones, especially in a safe place like a support group, may help them keep telling some of the most precious moments of their lives.
Some were too shy (even in this age of social media) to give any details about their lives to others. Some preferred to only chat with close friends or family members. Some feared crying before a first sentence ended. Some still hurt too much. I understood. But I’ve been a privileged listener to memories told by those in the groups. I believe with all of my broken, human heart that stories are part of the healing.
Did John and his father struggle throughout their lives together? I’m sure they did. But as their living relationship ended, I believe John helped keep his Dad’s memory alive.
In truth, I can’t not tell the story about these two men.
Whenever and wherever we relate another’s story—publicly with an “audience” or intimately around a family’s table—we celebrate a particular life and life itself.
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My book, A Companion for the Hospice Journey, is available at Amazon.
Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash