Day 21 – Death is crouching – a mortician’s view

On day 21 of my "30 days left to live," I received a text message at 1:30 a.m. morning from a new friend I recently met on my last trip to West Africa.

It was a plea for prayer on behalf of his friend, with whom he graduated from high school. His friend is in a fight for his life against leukemia. They are both 23ish.

Eric reminded me in the text message he “doesn’t do the God thing.”

Yet he is vicariously asking God to move.

We humans are such funny little creatures. If only our back-door acknowledgments to God were more plainly seen by us as a stark clue to how deep our need for Him is ingrained in our very being.

In the last four weeks in almost every circle of friends and family I have death has reminded me it is always on the move. This is partly my motivation for wanting to be more conscientious of how brief our time is here, and be more deliberate in how I make choices.

Three weeks ago, a 50-year-old farmer was electrocuted, who was among my parents’ closest friends. Tim left behind his bride of 28 years, Tina, and four beautiful children who had just started families of their own.

My friend Christy called me two days ago because her uncle suddenly passed away.

A business associate I have known and worked with for years died Wednesday from cancer. I didn’t even know he was sick. I read about it in the paper.

Two days before a friend’s wedding, she called me horrified, because her fiancé’s cousin had committed suicide in a drunken rage by slashing himself over his whole body and then hanging himself. He had a three-week-old baby and a new wife.

My own uncle has only weeks, possibly days, now that the cancer has spread to his brain.

A guy about my age who I know from church delivered the message this Sunday and talked about how his wife (couldn’t have been married more than a couple of years as he’s still in his 20s) was killed in a tragic car accident.

An excellent woman of deep character and faith that I have recently been privileged to spend time with has lost her mother, son and husband within a year.

Don’t tell me there aren’t times where it is legitimate to ask, “Has God deserted me?”

But what do we do with all the loss and tragedy? When the shortness of life socks us in the gut? Has God abandoned us?

I have a friend who is a mortician. She is young, full of joy and has this authentic faith that shines. She chose this path, because she sees all the pain, the questions and the despair of people who come through the doors of the funeral home.

It is her ministry to lovingly prepare arrangements, sit quietly with families, comfort in tears and give dignity to services, answer tough questions…

She thinks there is a culture of avoiding death in America. Ignoring its realities.

Often, we are shocked in the American church when death strikes home. Our society is so filled with images of beauty, vitality, youth and health, that death seems so far removed, unnatural and inappropriate unless you are old and have had a full life.

My mortician friend tells me about how the viewings used to be in the home for several days. It was a very public event where the home was the epicenter of all the remembrances, memorials, and grieving. Children were not protected from the dead or kept away while the casket was open.

And, of course, it used to be much more common to lose a child, or die young from disease, die in childbirth…

I don’t mean to be morbid in writing about this whole subject. But focusing on death and having a clear picture of the fact we are all going to die seems almost taboo to talk about.

Obviously when we experience death of someone significant in our life, it is natural to mourn, grieve and struggle deeply.

It's interesting that so many of my friends in West Africa maintain rock-like faith in Christ, when they see nothing but death and disease all-day long. But in the land of privilege and wealth, when we lose someone, often it cripples our faith.

Perhaps we’ve just lost our healthy acknowledgment of the reality of death – how quickly we come, how quickly others go and how brief we all are.

Whether we have 30 days left or 30 years. It’s all so brief. Understanding our own brevity and insignificance can bring clarity and passion to always live life like you only have 30-days left.