The privilege of collecting tears

One day I was called to the ward where an elderly man made an impact on me. His wife was dying. She was nominally C of E and he nominally RC. They had been married for 72 years. He was very strong while all his family were present. I used to pop in early in the morning when he was there on his own. For those few days that we chatted he would break his heart over the separation that he was about to experience. He told me that they had never been apart. Not even during the war because he had a job that kept him at home. His whole face would crinkle with grief as he spoke of his memories. As official visiting time got near he would blow his nose and become the stoic man that his family knew. I was so pleased he allowed himself to cry with me. The patient died and I watched the family walk away surrounding the surviving spouse. Somewhere deep inside of me I suspected that this man would soon follow his wife.

Around this time the woman that had cancer and believed God would heal her came back into the hospital. She was very poorly and the chemotherapy she had endured for system control was not helping.

When I visited I found she was more receptive to me. We talked about lots and I would pray with her regularly and read to her from the Psalms. She grew frailer with every passing day. On Maundy Thursday I knew she didn’t have much time left. With her families permission I did a liturgy which involved them anointing her and in turn she anointed them. It was very touching. At the end I gave her a hug. I said it was a good time to die as it was Holy Week. I wished her well for her journey and said she would have a few choice questions for God when she met up. I asked her to give God my love. She smiled at me. As I walked out the door she weakly raised her hand and started to sing “I know that my redeemer liveth” I left the room smiling. The reason for the smile was that I had accompanied this woman on her journey and been privileged to see her shift from her fundamental perspective of expecting God to heal her to one where she not only knew she was going to die but she embraced it. Wow. Amen!