15 years ago, my younger brother Jonathan died of cancer.
This week, Audrey sent me a post she had written to commemorate Jon's death.
It was beautiful, hopeful, powerful, and painful (the full text is at the end of this blog).
Painful because he isn't here with us.
My Mom first mentioned that the wound doesn't heal.
Our hearts move on, but they limp from that time forward.
I don't think about my brother all the time, and that may be a coping mechanism
(I don't know).
But when I do, there is usually first a smile, then a pain.
The smile, because of so many good memories
(often humorous memories where Jon was involved).
The pain, because I remember how much pain he suffered,
which became pain in me who loved him and had to watch helplessly.
I find it to be common among human beings that we can only feel so much.
Maybe men are weaker in this than women.
I for one am ready to concede freely.
I take my memories of Jon in small doses, so I don't get overwhelmed.
So I can continue to function.
But every time I listen to Mumford and Sons album Sigh No More,
I have to stop after a song or too.
This was our anthem while Jon was recovering from chemo.
Maybe this is what PTSD is like
(I don't know).
First, the memories come back, then the feelings come back, then the pain comes back.
I feel a bit out of control, which increases the urge to regain control---
even if it means pushing the memories away.
The old injury aches.
The limp becomes more pronounced.
That piece of our heart and life that was lost that day, reminds us again of what was lost---
what is still lost from our life.
Why him?
Why not me?
What of him now?
What of me now?
Am I angry?
Am I hurt?
Have I forgotten?
What of God?
What of life?
What of death?
What of life again?
I can almost tell the story as if it belonged to someone else.
People are always kind; "I am so sorry."
Me too.
I still feel strange talking about my suffering.
It was Jon who suffered the most.
As a parent I realize now too, that my parents suffered far more than I did.
But I can only try to make sense of my suffering, my pain, my loss.
Maybe this is survivor's guilt
(I don't know).
I have become greedy in my grief.
I am impatient with paltry comfort.
It's not enough.
I crave satisfaction; satisfaction for my grief and loss, and satisfaction for my sense of justice.
There is something so deep in us, it only comes to the surface when we are faced with an ugly death.
It is the desperate longing for things to be right---not like they are, not like this, not like cancer.
The angriest and most desperate prayers of my life were during Jon's cancer.
I can understand people who love God, and I can understand people who hate God.
I can understand people who desperately want to believe and feel they can't.
I can understand people who desperately do not want to believe.
But I cannot anyone who is merely indifferent.
Not anymore.
Indifferent?
To cancer?
To the shattered body of someone you love?
To evil?
To the suffering of children?
We can disagree about the answers to the largest questions of existence.
But I don't even know what so say to someone who fails to recognize their importance.
My brother Jon's cancer slapped me in the face.
It screamed in my ears.
I tried to look away, or hide but cancer gives no quarter.
Do I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come?
(the Nicene creed---a foundational document of Christianity).
I thought I did.
But that won't suffice anymore.
Not here.
Not with him.
I think Jon would have liked that his death, like his life
confronted us in our indifference, complacency, and fear.
How has Jon's life and death changed me?
He reminds me to be present where I am.
To see the people in front of me, to relish the day I am in the midst of.
Because he is an ever-present reminder that today may be my last.
He compels me to think about life beyond death.
This one is far too short, violent, painful, and broken.
He shakes me out of my apathy and indifference.
Life is too precious and wonderful and astonishing to be treated with lazy carelessness.
He pushes me towards God and deeper into life.
If I am angry about Jon's death, who else can I blame and be angry with?
If I am grateful for Jon's life and the memories we made, who else can I thank?
If I am afraid of my own death, who else can help me live with hope and courage?
If I am desperate to understand what this life is for and how to live it, where else can I go?
Who else has words of eternal life?
C.S. Lewis describes life after death in a pithy phrase:
"Further up, and further in."
We move towards God, and towards a deeper life.
Jon's life and his death pushed me further up (to pursue, argue and wrestle with God)
and further in (into relationships with others, into a deeper, more meaningful life here and now).
There is a powerful irony in Jon's death being so close to Easter.
Other friends, mothers, and brothers watched someone they love suffer terribly and die.
They too raged, wept, and ached.
Jesus, that young man they loved died violently.
But then he came back to life and said he had defeated death.
Not so men would no longer die,
but so that their life would become like His, and transcend death.
An opiate for the masses? Maybe.
If I am honest, there are times I am so desperate I would take anything.
Pie in the sky? Maybe.
Isn't it easier to avoid the real problems of this life if we talk about the afterlife?
But what if this hope in Jesus is not an opiate to avoid life, but fuel for embracing life more fully?
What if hope becomes the fuel that powers life in us, not only here and now but forever?
Then, and then only can we live and love with courage, joy, laughter, purpose, and compassion.
Then, and then only can we grieve and mock death at the same time.
I think Jon would approve.
From Audrey:
I was watching his chest to see if I could find a hint of movement, of breath in his lungs. In that moment of absolute stillness, I accepted that his body was dead. But, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew that his soul had not died. I thought, in that instant, that there is no possible way his soul could just cease to exist. His soul was not in that body anymore, but it had truly moved on to another place.
Today is the 15th anniversary of Jon's death. I can't help but think about the last time we saw his body on the morning he died, ravaged by cancer, so quiet and still.
On that day and on these days leading up to Easter, it is fitting to consider suffering and death.
Not that we should wallow and sit too long in the despair that suffering and death can bring, but that it should bear us into a deep and wild hope.
I'm hungry for hope, aren't you? Thank God that He gave it to us.
Just as Jesus died, so we shall die. But in Him, just as he rose again from the dead, so shall we. Through the death of Christ on the cross, He conquered death! We can live through Him and by Him forever. It's in this hope that we live.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NIV)
I pulled together some pictures of Jon and some book excerpts that stir up hope in my heart.
As a friend shared many years ago, Jon burned his candle at both ends. He was full of life and adventure. As we believe that this world is a mere shadow of the world to come, the Kingdom of God, I have hope that Jon's adventures have continued; that he's becoming more fully himself than he was or could ever be here. That he is finding his complete wholeness and satisfaction and fulfillment and place with God.
As C.S. Lewis says in The Last Battle, "but for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."
So we wait in hope to this end - and in this in-between time. And with courage and bravery we use our lives to usher in God’s kingdom now on earth, as it is in heaven.
“Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!”
Psalm 131:3 (The Message)
आशा – Hold on to hope, dear friends.
