I, like many others, hold to the myth
of continuity, even though I continually rail against it. I guess
it's how we deal with the world around us; so that we don't need to
recalculate every aspect of life at the same time. Some things have
to stay the same, I guess, I hope. They've been getting strange
lately.
I got a call last night, from my
sister in California. She said my mother was complaining about
“pressure” in her chest. The hospital examined her and said she
was fine, so she went home. The discomfort returned, so she went back
to the hospital; where they found a ruptured blood vessel next to her
heart. The leak was interfering with the main heart valve. They put
her on a Morphine drip overnight, but earlier today, she passed away.
Last year, my father in law, who
lived nearby, passed away from a marrow problem that lasted months.
My own father died from a rare affliction, which was not a sudden
thing. So that's how I assumed it would be, ten years down the road,
a sickness or some other indicator first. In fact, last year she kept
saying how she was losing her memory, but I suspected it was stress
from the death of a friend. The more time went by, the more she
recovered from the loss, and the better her memory got. In our phone
conversations, I didn't notice the memory thing at all. So I thought
everything was OK, ten years away, and all that. The phone calls,
man, that's one of the most important things I want to tell you
about.
We might have had a normal family,
not good, but normal. My dad left when I was about 11. We never did
anything religious, later in my teen years, I ran the streets and
lived a bad life till I was in my late 20's, when I read a little
book about creation. Later I became a Christian. Through all that, I
never had contention with my mother, but at the same time, we were
never close. Nobody in my family was close. We just weren't in
frequent contact. My wife's family thought that was a strange thing.
My wife and her sister Marie were often asking me if I had talked to
my mother lately. There were times when I regarded it as harassment.
I felt like saying “Hey! Let's make a deal, OK? How about you bug
me about these things in the same amount that I bug you about them?
Hmmm, how about that?”
I never said that; being a long term
recovering bad man, and knowing it. I figured that what they were
prodding me about was what normal people do, what high class people
do. My wife's father had a large family, something like 92
grandchildren. My wife has memorized all their names, every last one.
That seems to me to be a high class thing, remembering people's
names,and the details of their lives. So I didn't revolt, didn't
react, in fact, I called my mother a lot more than I would have if
left to myself. Now this. Man, am I glad I called. Dear reader, does
any of this sound familiar? Your relatives got a long time yet? Don't
talk to them often? Now it's my turn; I'm pestering you. Call them.
Watch out for the myth of continuity.
When my father passed away, I was at
his bed side a few days prior. A Christian minister had been visiting
him, so I assume the minister talked about eternal things, and, if I
recall, my cousin's husband was also telling him about the eternal
choice we can only make in this life. The choice is this:Every one of
us has alienated ourselves from God by our sin. Some have more sin,
some less, but we're all guilty. You will either be judged for that
sin yourself, or, by faith, you can trust that Jesus was punished in
your place. That's what will make you part of God's family, it's the
beginning of the Christian life.
I tried to talk to my father about
that, there on his death bed, but he would jolt from his half sleep
and ask “WHY ARE YOU ASKING?” It seemed too stressful a thing to
discuss with someone in a very frail condition. That, and other
people had been talking to him about it. I've wondered whether I
should have pressed the matter. Gently, but clearly.
I got to talk to my mother on the phone. She
couldn't respond, but she could hear, and I told her that maybe she's
trusted Christ for years, but this life is the only time we have to
decide to have Him take our punishment. I didn't miss the chance this
time. It reminds me of a video we (the family) just watched about an hour ago, never saw it before. There's a scene where the atheist professor was dying, and the minister was there to talk to him. The name of the movie is "God's not dead". I told my kids that I hoped they would remember the things going on in the lives of the people in the movie. They were very real situations; the love, indifference, and turmoils were what people around us are going through, that we don't need to watch fiction adventure movies to see the difficulties people have to deal with. Neat movie, realistic situations.
