“Why did Grandpa Larry die?”
His bright blue eyes looked up at me as I was tucking my seven year old grandson into bed. Phoenix and his eight year old sister, Trillium, were often visiting when Larry would start his afternoon dialysis. They were fascinated with the process of preparing a sterile field, the hand washing and applying sanitizer, the wearing of face masks. They had the option of staying out of the TV room for forty-five minutes, or of washing hands and wearing a mask to be able to watch. They often chose the mask.
They always asked questions about the process.
“What was the stuff that came out of the tube in Grandpa’s tummy?”
“Did it hurt?”
“What was the stuff in the bags going into Grandpa’s tummy?”
But, most of all, “Why do we have to wear the masks? Why does he have to do this?”
We answered every question, every time, explaining that it was medicine going in, and waste coming out since Grandpa’s kidneys didn’t work and he didn’t pee anymore, that what we did every day (and ten hours every night) was keeping Grandpa alive. We told them we had to be careful to keep Grandpa from getting an infection which would put him in the hospital. We also had to explain about how important their kidneys are, and theirs work just fine, and weren’t going to quit on them.
Three months later, Phoenix asked me why Grandpa died.
I took a breath, flashed through how often we explained that the medicine kept Grandpa alive, and said, “His heart stopped beating. He was so sick, and it was too much work for his heart, and it quit.”
“I feel sad,” Phoenix said.
“I do too,” I said.
He held on for an extra hug when I leaned in to kiss him goodnight. I turned out the light and thought about my own questions and other ways I had wrestled with the question. Answers that didn’t need to be shared with a seven year old, about how years of poor diet and lack of exercise and mismanaged diabetes had contributed to Larry’s kidney failure and early death, how sometimes I was angry over the dysfunctional relationship with his mother and why he had such a desperate need for comfort, which he found in food, and my sadness that my love for him was not enough to keep him alive... No, that was not what he wanted to know.
I had my own early questions about death, but I was older, probably eleven or twelve, when my best friend’s grandfather died unexpectedly of a heart attack. The adults around me comments on Will Moos’s death were that he was too young. Maybe early 60’s. It was the first funeral I ever attended, complete with an open casket and his somewhat life-like remains. The questions I wanted answered were along the lines of “why did God create us if we are just going to die? What’s the point of living?” (Yes, as a pre-teen I had theological curiosity. Go figure.)
Perhaps my mother was unsure how to answer, but she took me seriously enough to take me to see the pastor, a recent seminary graduate. Rev. Dean Kallander took me seriously too. What I remember of his response was telling me that we (human kind) were created because God was lonely and needed us to help with creation. I know he steered me towards James Weldon Johnson’s poem “The Creation,” which I have cherished and referred to all my life. I know his answer or maybe his consideration of my question was enough, and that he influenced my approach to careful listening and honoring the seeker after truth.
Another poet, Mary Oliver, continues the dialogue for me in “The Summer Day.” She writes:
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
One of the greatest gifts to me, and to the world, was that Larry was here to love well, to embody unconditional love and compassion for the lost and the least, the damaged and the disenfranchised. The questions still remain. Not why did Larry die, but why do any of us live? What can we contribute to this world that makes a difference? How does one life impact others? It is so much more than a personal self-examination these days. In a world of murdered school children, it is existential, theological, and moral.
I still ask: Without pulpit, seeking new identity and community, within a fractured world, what more is there for me to do with my one wild and precious life?
