LINDA Tuesday, January 28, 2014 We’d known what was coming for several weeks. Still, just before we turned out the lights to go to sleep last Saturday night, I got a text that sucked the wind out of me. “Linda Powell died tonight at 9:30,” it read. Speechless, I handed the phone to Nancy who read the text and then said, “Oh, no!” “No” is what I felt. That powerless “No” of denial that always comes with tragic news that rocks your world. In a moment, I just began to quietly cry and Nancy moved in closer. Knowing her death was imminent didn’t change the pain it brought with it when it finally arrived. Denial is a normal first step of grief. In this case, it was magnified by the fact that, just ten days before I called Linda. Even though she’d already gone on Hospice care, she and Jud were still planning a trip to Fredericksburg to see some of their six grandchildren. “That’s close,” I said. “If you come to Fredericksburg we’ll drive over and have dinner.” “Let’s count on it,” Linda said – just ten days before. Then, a few days later, Jud called and said, “We nearly lost Linda last night. The end is coming soon and we know it. In fact, I’ve told my secretary to clear my calendar all next week. We’ll be planning the funeral service and all that,” he said. “Can I speak to Linda?” I asked, not knowing if she was even up to a brief phone conversation. “Sure, she’s sitting right here,” Jud said. He had said everything he said to me, about planning the funeral and all, with Linda sitting right there. They’d already moved to a level of acceptance I had yet to achieve. Just a couple of weeks before, Linda’s oncologist told her through his own tears that there was nothing more he could do. She’d fought breast cancer for the twenty-six of her sixty-three years. Her doctor said he could get her into any experimental program in the country she wanted. “No,” Linda said. “That’s all I needed to hear. I want to spend what time I have left with my family.” She was tired. Tired of the treatments and their attendant suffering. She was tired of fighting a battle she knew she couldn’t win and finally surrendered to the mystery of it all. I haven’t been able to write for the last two days. My soul has felt empty. Linda’s death has created a painful and palpable void no one can ever fill. There are two things I once didn’t understand that now I know well. I never understood why people went ape when a grandchild was born. Now, I understand. Secondly, I never understood what life must be like for elderly people who spend more time at funerals than birthday parties, more time saying “good-bye” to old friends than welcoming new ones. Now, I understand or I’m beginning to. Just six days before she died, Linda stood at the pulpit of her church, First Baptist, Abilene, and gave her testimony (youtube/watch?v=3l98sR418Qw). It was not syrupy or sorrowful, though no one would have blamed her. Instead, she talked about the grace and hope, love and mercy, peace and joy she had discovered through contemplative prayer. The disease had come bearing the gift of a deeper faith than she’d ever known. Many hours of her last ones were spent in time alone with God walking the backyard or sitting by the fire. Linda was just a very special friend and person. I have no memory of ever seeing her that I didn’t feel more blessed or more hopeful. She and Nancy had the stomach for listening to mine and Jud’s cynicism about everything, even the church. They also had the courage to know when to tell us to give it a rest and love what God had given us more than what life had taken. I never saw Linda, not even in her worst days, that she didn’t have at least one smile for those around her. I’ll never be able to think of her without seeing that smile. Even as she gave her prayer testimony six days before she died, she smiled. Where does faith like that come from? Where does the faith come from, the kind of faith that set Linda free to see death closing in and continue to smile, to laugh at death as nothing more than a speed bump on the way into the eternal mystery of God’s forever rest in heaven? I will leave that question unanswered because, for me, it still is. Linda died on Jud’s birthday. The family opened a special bottle of wine they’d been saving. As they toasted, Jud’s daughter said, “This is a happy birthday for you, Dad. Happy birthday! And, it’s a happy birthday for Momma Linda, too. Happy birthday, Momma Linda!” The last time I talked to Linda, before telling her one more time that I loved her, I said, “I’m going to miss you.” She said, “I’m going to miss you, too.” For once, I was spot on. I miss you, Linda. Keep heaven’s gates open wide. Some of us are going to need a little more help getting through them than others.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 13:10:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015