Can you tarry one more hour?

Hans has been restless all week. His usual state of tranquility has been permanently displaced. He does not want to be alone, often calling out my name, which, he has not used in years. It feels strange to hear it in the middle of the night. He should be saying "honey" but instead I hear my proper name "Judy." He constantly moans now, uncomfortable in all positions, and fearful of moving out of bed or out of his chair for fear of falling or collapse. I finally suggest a hospital bed and he eagerly agrees. 

I am distressed about his distress. On some deep level I sense it is the end or the beginning of the end. There is, in some distant place within me, a deep wailing going on. It is far from the room of light (the intellect) and surpasses all my theories and theologies. It is the primal soul force threatened with abandonment and isolation. I talk to my soul, comforting it with the truth. It is fitful and cannot be easily brought down. I acknowledge its fears. I must be gentle with my soul and take it frequently to Jesus. It is primitive and cannot manage itself without the light of God. 

To add to this soul unrest, I hear Hans talking about taking impossible trips, making plans beyond the grave. As he moves closer to death I am overwhelmed with fear once again. I see his skin in the night light and it is smooth and creamy, it is irreconcilable with death. How can Hans, of all people, be dying? No, it cannot be so. It must be a joke. He is my ox-man. We often joked about living on Ox-ford. A place where we as oxen of the Lord lived, or congregated at the 'ford." His code for his internet was Oxman1. Oxen have huge muscles, their frames are as solid as the hills. How can oxen just lay down and die?  They are too strong to die. At their death, all that muscle, all that brute strength is laid to waste upon  the earth, good for nothing. 

I hear Hans calling in the night, but I want to hide under the covers. But  I remember the invitation extended to the disciples to go with Jesus into the garden of Gethsemane to pray. They, being overwhelmed with sorrow, fall asleep. They abandon their post in lieu of a more comfortable realm:sleep. Sleep is the only haven left for such deep sorrow. As they sleep, Jesus begins to enter into the agony or restlessness of death, to be "sorrowful and troubled." Hans moans in the night, having entered Gethsemane himself along with his Lord. I am asleep in my room "next door." I don't want to hear my name called in the middle of the night. But neither do I want to be Peter or James and abandon the Lord in his greatest hour of need. I rouse myself, it is 3:30 in the morning. I wake up fully, and rub Hans' arms which elicits a grateful nod. I will not abandon my post and so I get some pretzels and a coke, my laptop and a pillow and move into his room. He calls out my name and an alert voice responds to him. My moving into the room still does not prepare me for his discomfort. I know it is the discomfort of the body, moaning for its own sorrow. Hans is not even aware of it. It feels good for the patient to have the body speak in this way, although for the living it is a horror. What can I do? I want to feed him, distract him, drug him. Anything to relieve his discomfort. 

Pray! I shall pray for him. Jesus wanted the disciples to pray for Him. How would you have prayed? The same thing I do? 

I say,  "Lord, I pray that you would give Jesus the strength to go through this trial. Give him the grace and resilience of mind to remember your great promises and to believe in your goodness as He contemplates the way You have chosen for him. Give him, in this hour of separation from all he holds dear, the fortitude to go on, looking past all the pain and loss, to the joy set before Him. Honor his faithful and obedient life Lord, give him a sweet surrender as He moves forward to the headwaters of glory.  Nothing short of Your Presence guiding us can move us to submit to the dark doorway of death, light it with Your brilliance so that we will see nothing but light and goodness. In the name of the Savior, who has gone on before us."


Hans falls into a deep sleep and I ask the question, Has the prayer taken effect? Has the Father, through the intercession of Christ (and me) removed the fear, the horror, the complete and utter exhaustion from him? 

Nevertheless, thy will be done.

I lay down beside him now, stroking his face lightly. He is calm. He looks to me at this angle, like a Saint Benedict or a Father Groeschel. He is looking like someone out of a book rather than my familiar bridegroom. Why must it be like this? My mind goes to all the monks who die in their cells alone without a sweet wife to console their brow. The power of God must be mighty in those cells for those who truly believe. Otherwise what a horror to experience death completely and absolutely alone—rather to be shot in the head and instantly perish than to die a slow death, alone. 

No, I finally see the resemblance: he looks like St. Francis De Sales, Calvin would have been proud. Ha!