Wednesday, April 11, 2001
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Wednesday, April 11, 2001 |
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Easter and Resurrections - Dancing in the kitchen By
SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE It's been a rough few months, if not for us personally, for many we hold dear. A teen-aged son, a middle-aged mother, an older father, a dad and granddad younger than myself; some who languished, some who were gone in a flash all leaving a void, a longing. All missed sorely by someone who loved them. But the irony is this: That for every one who died, there was another who lived, whose family is convinced God spared him or her. That troubles me. Perhaps God did. But what does this mean to the families who are sorrowing? That God rejected their plea? I cannot trust a God so arbitrary. To those who take comfort in believing that God pulls strings and manipulates every second of our lives, I will not take issue, but my trust is in a God that set up certain irreversible laws of nature, of time and space, of cause and effect, who then allows us the freedom to work within them. When we choose not to, or when the laws of nature, of time and space, of cause and effect run counter to life, God suffers with us. God does not withhold love, does not turn away from us, does not leave us, does not blame or accuse us. This is grace, and this is Easter's message. Many of you were so kind as to let me know that a column I did last month celebrating 45 years of marriage meant a lot to you. I found it poignant that most of those who called, wrote or stopped me in Kroger were people whose own marriages had ended with the death, usually, of a spouse. "Usually," because for some, the laughing, the bickering, the good memories and bad, had ended with divorce or the devastation of disease. Or in a blast of gunfire. Given the week we are in, I've been casting about for words that would cheer, would uplift, would heal the pain of their stories. Too easy, too easy to say, "Look at the Resurrection and be at peace again." If God is just and fair, some wonder, how could God plunge a brilliant, witty, productive grandmother into the swirling mists of dementia? Was it God's idea of a joke, the tumor's return a month after the surgeon declared, "We got it all"? Did one husband pray harder or live purer, that his wife is now well past the magic five years breast-cancer-free, while the father of three youngsters watched their mother die? Two sets of parents get the call: "There's been an accident." Are those now praising God for sparing their child somehow more deserving than the ones whose son did not live? The ancient stories of a man murdered for his cockamamie claim to have the key to the Kingdom of God, then leaving his tomb and walking with his friends once more they seem to mock the pain and heartache of the real world in which the dead stay dead and the dying do not get well. And yet. From Malia Bergstrom come two stories worth sharing. I don't pretend they will make the pain go away or even show the relevance of Easter. But heed them nonetheless. Malia's mother is deep into the nightmare of Alzheimer's, and is cared for by Malia's dad. Malia writes that one evening at dinner her 11-year-old daughter Claire "remarked that a good thing about Grandmommie being sick is that we see Papa being so good to her. She said that she didn't know anyone well who had been through hard times (the bliss of youth ...) to see how they respond. "We are content, I must tell you," Malia continues, "in the peace that God gives. There are fates worse than this. [Mother] is loved and cared for, she is content now ... and our children are seeing the grace of God lived out in my father's life. We know her soul is kept with God. There are many deeper sorrows than ours." She went on to write about her husband Chuck's cousin, Sheila, orphaned when she was about 10. "Sheila has always been a zany, loving, open-hearted person, but didn't marry until four or five years ago when she was well into her 40s. She married an Irish ex-NYC police detective named Donal and they have been happy. "About a year ago he was diagnosed with apparently advanced prostate cancer, so she has been consulting with Chuck [a physician] to help her navigate the stormy seas of the health care system, and to get comfort in dealing with all the frightening blows of cancer. ..." Late one evening Sheila jotted a note to her extended family, titled, "Husbands and Those Who Love Them." "They make you angry; they make you mad; they make you sad and so confused and so rude. But most of all they make you happy and make you feel so lucky to have them. "They are the history of your married life and all the happiness and strife in your life. ... You can throw your hands up with exasperation and total confusion but finally, like tonight with Donal and me, we are dancing in the kitchen. "Dancing in the kitchen? After a lengthy discussion, not always quiet, abou
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