I know you’ve heard this story; maybe you’ve even read it in the book I wrote about my sister Pat. But here it is again, coz this is the weepy theme I’ve chosen for Wednesdays for now.
Chapter 13 - How it Ends (from the book "Holding All the Aces")
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” I read from her Bible at the side of her bed several nights later. Pat was unresponsive, her breathing labored but steady.
“Keep reading,” Mom whispered to me.
“They say that your hearing is the last thing to go.”
We were keeping vigil, something I
never in a million years thought I would be doing, there at Pat’s bedside in
the nursing home. Just being in the nursing home was beyond anything I could
fathom. My sister Pat? Bubbly, full of life, a pistol who never stopped moving,
never stopped working. How could she be lying in that nursing home bed, pale
and gaunt, unable to speak or move on her own?
“He makes me to lie down in green
pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me
in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
Why would God do this to my sister,
my best friend? Why did she have to suffer so much and so long? If He wanted
her in heaven, why didn’t He take her suddenly, painlessly? And why can’t He
send a miracle? Right here and right now?
The doctors said that it had been a
miracle that she had lived for six years with this kind of an aggressive
cancer. Really? Because I didn’t see it as a miracle, I saw it as six years of
my sister dying when she should have been living.
“Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your
rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
But she had lived those six years.
She and I had gone on camping trips, sometimes with Judy, sometimes with my
kids. She had stood up at the wedding of her best friend from college. She had
been the photographer for my second wedding. She and her husband, along with me
and mine, had flown to Las Vegas for a long weekend. She had continued working
as long as she could.
“You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.”
I looked up at Mom, and she gestured
that I should keep reading. But I was out of ideas. Sure, there were many more
chapters in the book of Psalms, David’s outpouring of belief in his God and
that all things would turn out right through Him. But I just could not do it.
The following day, my sister Judy
joined the vigil. When the nurse checked on Pat, she nodded toward her bed as
she left the room. I don’t remember if she actually said it or not, but the
words that came into my head were, “It’s time.”
We gathered around Pat and watched
her lungs fill for the last time. Then, the air slowly ebbed from her, as if
the oxygen was leaving not only her lungs but her fingers and toes and even her
pores.
A sob escaped from Mom, and Judy
probably reacted as well. All I did was watch that frail chest, waiting for it
to rise again, willing it to rise. Not taking my eyes from that slight lump
under the sheet.
“Come on, Pat, come on, you can do
it. Take another breath.”
It never happened.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.”
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