When it is Time to Die

I used to think I’d prefer to die slow. I wanted a diagnosis with some time attached to it. I wanted time to look at it, exam it all, and see what it was planning to do to me. I wanted to feel all the feelings and prepare for what would come, to talk it all over with a friend or two and unpack the final bits of my earthly bags in readiness. I wanted to lie under a blue sky and try to fill myself up with enough of it to satisfy me before I left. I wanted to climb an oak tree and feel it’s age and power and shade engulfing me until I was satsified again. I wanted to look into the eyes of my boys and those I loved and leave no word left unsaid that would serve to comfort them in my absence. I wanted to organize my journals, burn the ones that would make me blush and take time to write down some more.

My Dad died slow. The news of his going came after symptoms and doctor appointments and surgeries. When all hope was exhausted and a number of days was deposited into all of our expectations for him we began to prepare ourselves for his going. I didn’t cry for days because I am slow, and why death should come slow for me too. I looked at him extra and thought of him often over the next year since it was to be his last. I talked with him more, imagined existing without the image of him sitting in his big recliner in the house in Kentucky, a glass of iced tea and his bible on the end table. I studied his enormous and calloused hands. I kissed his warm, whiskered cheek the last time I saw him. It felt soft– not the firm, strong skin I always knew before cancer. I told him I loved him and he told me.

Because life is a unique experience for each of us I assume death will be the same. I didn’t want death to sneak up on me and slap me outta here with nary a goodbye or an eye set on the prize. But such notions are bound to unravel and so they have unraveled for me. And I find that there is a bit of dying in all of my living; dying to myself and surrendering to God, dying to my expectations and surrending them to God, dying to my longing for security and surrendering that to God, dying to my preconceived notions about my life and what it should have been and surrendering it all to my Poppa God. And may I die to earthly pleasures and sin today, and as I do death cannot really sneak up on me however it comes; fast or slow. His love fills me up and the old fear has not so much time to lie to me about such things. I die into life. Life in Jesus is fully realized when all of my flesh is conquered once and for all and I become fully HIS. I must both live and die simultaneously.

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;”e the last Adam a life-giving spirit. Corinthians 15:42-45