The important conversation with my nephew happened a few days ago after dinner. We were lounging on comfortable couches. The sun had set. The lighting in the room was low. Many other conversations had already taken place opening room for the conversation my nephew seems to have really hoped us to have. He was telling us about his medical options when my wife gently asked, “Are you frightened?” (I was surprised by her question, thinking, are we ready to go here?) But his answer came easily, “No, I’ve come to terms with it. I don’t feel scared.” We allowed him to proceed, permitting silence. He continued. “I didn’t always feel this way. I’ve been angry, really angry sometimes, but that happened earlier.” With as much care as I could muster, knowing we were on sacred ground, I asked, “How are you feeling now? Can you share that with us?” (You take the risk.) Maybe he’d respond, “I’d rather not say.” Fine. But the time was right. The conversation opened as he spoke about what he will miss. He spoke about his family. He spoke of his life. There were tears. He spoke with a maturity and wisdom about death and life, and not knowing what comes next and hoping. He spoke about things as far as he was able to go and then this precious moment of honesty and beauty closed with hugs and moist eyes. There were lots of things we did over those four days before we took him back to the airport, but that conversation might have been the most important moment. He wanted to tell somebody, talk it through, speak the unspoken, hear from those he trusted. There is a place for elders, for trusted companions, for friends, even as hard as it may be for any of us to enter the realm of speaking about our own mortality and death and what we hope. The point is, life teaches us we must not put off the things that matter most – even the hard conversations. There are important conversations we need to have with ourselves and there are ones that are important to have with others.
FACING OUR OWN MORTALITY Story Cont ' d ...
What have I accomplished? What will I leave behind? How might I be remembered?
Are there things I can still change? make better?
What things can I do while there is still time?
What about the things I cannot change?
What are “the nevers” I’m never going to do, never going to see, that have to be let go.
Family and loved ones can be helpful here. It is true that the moment of receiving a diagnosis of a life-limiting disease may at first stir a natural determination to survive, to prove the diagnosis otherwise. Ronald Rolheizer says we are “built for the stars.” We possess an innate fire that drives toward limitless life. Who has time to dwell on mortality? Right? Until one is presented with life-limits. Then, when the horizon of life suddenly comes nearer, a natural inclination can arise to review one’s life, take stock, put things in order and determine how to make the most of the time that remains. What also seems true is that an encounter with one’s mortality can open reflection around the fundamental question of our essence; Who am I, really? What will happen to me when I die? Am I really no more than an assembly of atoms that like a flame, when it goes out, is simply gone. The flame goes nowhere. Or is there a deeper human mystery here? Is there a “me” that has always been more than just physicality? An essence? Something soulful, beautiful, eternal, beyond my knowing, still to be revealed?
Teilhard de Chardin once wrote;
" We are not so much human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on the human journey."
The Rev. Canon Dr. Richard LeSueur
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