A Visit with a Sick Friend
A friend of mine is sick and his wife asks me to visit him. She meets me at the door and ushers me into the dining room where my sick friend’s brother and another friend greet me. While my friend sleeps in another room, we talk about his condition. He is gravely ill. The discussion soon turns to how best to help my friend through these next days, to make sure his pain is kept at a minimum and he is comfortable.
The brother of my sick friend, a man in his fifties, speaks of his love for his younger sibling. He holds back tears but his emotions are raw, real, and beautiful. Only brotherly love can rise to a moment like that. The brothers favor each other in that they are strong, independent men, and give far more than they take from life.
After a while, the wife tells of how she and her husband met. It may not have been love at first sight, she tells me, but it was the beginning of a relationship that would soon grow into love, the kind of love that would bring joy and happiness into their lives, the kind of love that would bring two precious children into the world, the kind of love that lasts.
I reach for the hand of my friend’s wife and hold it in mine. I want her to know that she is not alone. Over the years she and her husband and their children have endeared themselves to our community. If the Swedish proverb is true that shared sorrow is half sorrow, then maybe some of her insufferable burden can be lifted through the empathy and compassion of her community.
When my friend stirs from his sleep, we move into another room to be with him. I sit next to him, while his brother kneels beside him and holds his hand, gently massaging it. His wife and her friend rest on a couch just a few feet from where I am sitting. The family dog, a golden doodle, nuzzles up to me, and licks my hand, her eyes intently watching her sick master.
There is much love in this house, love that has kept my friend alive for longer than the doctors thought possible. The love is palpable. It permeates every space in the house. The room is, should I say, full of Gemutlichkeit—a German word that expresses a sense of well-being. Well-being not because everything is rosy, it is not, but because love is stronger than sickness or even death. Love endures even after everything else has failed.
I look closely at my friend. His head is slumped between his shoulders. Brain cancer does that. He is a gentle and kind man. I’ve known him for over a decade. Many memories of happier times wash over me. I remember watching from my front yard as he played with his young children on the drive-way, teased him when he walked his dog in the neighborhood, a routine he did several times a day. I recall the lunches we enjoyed together, the conversations and the laughter over jokes, especially when we couldn’t remember the punch lines. I’ve spoken to him about important as well as trivial matters. We talked about God, faith, family, and football.
During those seemingly care-free days, my friend holds little back. He is transparent about his feelings and beliefs, but he is never caustic or mean-spirited. His smile and keen ability to always see the best in people lifts everyone’s spirits. His children adore him, and the highlight of the day for his golden doodle is to walk beside him as they tour the neighborhood. If the neighbors were to elect an ambassador of goodwill, he would win hands down.
Now, the doodle stands sentinel beside my sick friend, as though she knows that her days of walking beside her master are coming to an end. My friend will soon enter hospice. I talk to him about his new digs and ask him if he has any anxiety or fear. He slightly shakes his head that he does not. His response does not surprise me. I think I even detect the hint of a smile, as though he is reassuring us that there is nothing to fear. He will write this chapter of his life the same way he has written all the other chapters—with courage, a sense of humor, simple faith, and love.
I’m glad he marches to the beat of his inner-self. He listens to that still, small voice deep inside that tells him over and over again, “You are God’s child. Be not afraid. God is with you every step of the way. God will never leave you. Be at peace. Cancer is not the end, only a detour in the journey.”
The noise of the world can be deafening at times. It shouts that there is nothing else but what we can experience with our senses. We live in a secular culture where much of it ignores or dismisses any possible reality other than what can be rationally proven. Certainly, true religion acknowledges the importance of reason—any religion that says otherwise is mere superstition—but faith also believes that there is reality beyond what the mind can comprehend.
Actually, reality may not even be the right word. Reality suggests something that exists in the universe, but God’s presence cannot be confined to the universe. Reality exists in time and space, but God stands beyond time and space.
In other words, our powers of reason cannot grasp God or rationally figure God out. Everything we think we know about God is tentative, some would even use the word speculative. The prophet Isaiah reminds us that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways (Isa. 55:8-9). God is totally Other.
The world is what we know, the world of flesh and blood, and much of it is filled with sickness, greed, evil, and death. These things are real and we experience them every day. They weigh on us and penetrate every pore of our being and burden our lives with doubt and despair. It is pounded daily into our heads that this is all there is.
Faith invites us to look beyond all the darkness, to believe that there is something more. Faith does not ask that we abandon reason, only that we expand it. And from time to time, here and there, if we pay close attention, we can see clues of something more. Granted, our vision is blurry, but what glimpses we do have bear evidence of a far larger canvas, one that includes the awesome presence of divine mystery, a mystery that reaches out to us in love.
We see fingerprints of a divine love in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament that tell us of a God who cares for all people. We see a loving hand at work in delivering a poor, slave people from Egypt. We see divine love in the life of Jesus, who taught his followers an alternative way to live—love is greater than hate, forgiveness better than revenge. We see divine love in the empty tomb that announces that a graveyard is not the end, but the mere beginning.
Divine love is not so very far away. I see it on the faces of my sick friend and his wife. I see love with family members and friends who stand vigil with them so they will not be alone. I see it when people through small, sacrificial acts give of themselves to one who can give nothing in return.
Love is a powerful medicine, stronger than chemo or any other medical intervention. Years earlier my friend had been diagnosed with cancer of the brain and has suffered through numerous surgeries, even having a large portion of his skull removed. But he survived. The love from his wife, children, brother, other family members, and friends flowed through his veins, helping to absorb the deadly cancer cells, helping to extend his life.
Now love will carry him through the next chapter of his journey as well. And love will continue to be there for his family, and Gemutlichkeit will continue to fill the house with a sense of well-being. Love never fails.
