Vigil

This past weekend, Kathleen's family gathered in the small town of Payson, Arizona to stand watch as Kath's mom's battle with cancer came to a close.  It was sad, it was draining, but it was also a time of laughter, the re-telling of favorite stories and just being family.  God was present, which shouldn't be a surprise but it always is for some strange reason.  Maybe it has more to do with my paper-thin faith, my brokenness; or maybe that's just the nature of God and God's kingdom.  It's kind of like the scene from The Chronicles of Narnia, when Aslan is walking along the beach one moment and the next he's gone.  Hmm?

On Sunday, as we were present with the mom-in-law, I started journaling a bit about this notion of vigil.  My sister-in-law is from Mexico and is devoutly Catholic.  For her, vigils have rules.  There is form and structure to them.  You stand vigil for so many days, you pray certain prayers, you use the rosary, you...you get the idea.  For me, our vigil was what you do when words are no longer enough anymore.  Maybe that's my growing up Baptist.  Anyway, I was just struck by this notion of holding vigil over Kathleen's mom.

How do we do this dance with death?  Its not like there's a rule book.  How do we deal with the unkown?  I know that for those of us who follow Jesus, we believe there is another space/place where God's presence envelops us.  In that we take comfort, but it doesn't always ease the burden of saying good-bye or keeping vigil.  Where does our Hope for something more than this life intertwine with our keeping watch over someone as they prepare to leave this life into something more?  How?  I'm not sure, other to say, imperfectly.

Closer now...breathing a little more shallow...how do you say goodbye?  I start to think of my own parents; about them in this situation, of how I/we would hold vigil over them.  Sad.

It's probably to soon to write this, too soon to post it, yet it's hard to do anything else but to think about it; our keeping vigil over Donna.  It's hard not to think of her, to miss her, to love her, to want a different outcome than what we got.  It's hard cause I see the pain in my wife's face, in her voice, in the voices and faces of her brothers, of my children...of Ev and his life without her after all these years with her...

Dying is hard work...vigils are hard... may we all be surprised by the Hope

-M-