Our Great Respite

There's this crazy moment in one of the Chronicles of Narnia films.  Two kings meet on the battlefield and decide to forego an all-out war with much blood shed, choosing rather to fight man-to-man combat, each man representing his people.  The winner takes all.

A fierce hand-to-hand battle ensues as respective armies look on.  Though Good King Peter is but a lad and less experienced in battle, he begins to prevail over the wicked king.  Here's the crazy moment; out of breath, beaten up and bruised, the evil lord raises his hand to Peter and cries out, "Respite!"

As I sat and watched this unfold, I couldn't help but laugh.  Are you serious?  I think if I were King Peter, I'd be asking a few questions like, aren't you the guy who wants to kill me?  Would you give me mercy if I were tiring?  Are you really asking me to let you catch your breath, to give you a few moments to recoup your energy, maybe check your emails, grab a dark roast with extra sugar to help you refocus on the task of killing me and stealing my kingdom?

Uhm...No!  Sorry Evil Lord! You are going down.

I guess Peter was pretty spent himself and a man of mercy, so he relents.  If you know the story, you know the wicked lord doesn't fair so well in the end anyway, as his own men conspire to kill him before battle's end.

Respite is a funny word.  The only other time I've heard the term respite is in the world of hospice care.   Like in the Narnian story, respite is a term used for the relief period granted to a battle weary soul in need of a rest, to gain some refreshment from and perspective on a relentless task.  In the hospice version, its a battle for life and love, the relentless battle to maintain the comfort and dignity of a loved one in his or her last days.

Peter, in the story, embodies the idea.  A weak, inexperienced man, yet stout and resolute, willing to stake his life to stand in the gap for those who need his protection because love has made a claim on his life and heart.

Life's evil counterpart death, like Peter's opponent, is not so willing to give respite.  Audrey watched today as her father was taken away via a hospital gurney to respite care; his five day stay in a local full-care facility.  "This is the man," she recalled, "who worked with his hands his entire life, working two or three physical jobs at once, working on his cars, building an addition on our home and now..."  

Tears came quickly as she flashed through fifty years of childhood, teen, and adult memories, remembrances of a brave and strong man, busy with toil, flush with vigor.  She told me about how she watched today as the two young EMT's worked with Dad.  They lowered him on the gurney using the ceiling lift.  They adjusted his body until he was safe and comfortable.  They lifted his arms that had fallen limp beside him and folded them gently across his chest.  They covered him with a blanket and they transported him down the ramp to the waiting ambulance.  A man who was always on the move reduced to absolute zero mobility.  Death has wrapped its tentacles around this once strong man and is pulling him ever closer.

But as Baptist evangelist Tony Campolo used to preach, "It's Friday, but Sunday's coming!"

Peter did not stand alone that day in battle.  Though he was weak and weary, Aslan was on the move and the might and strength that brought that lion king back from the grasp of death, overcame evil and the breath of Winter was forever stilled.    

Our lives are no storybook, nonetheless we stand in similar strength.  We have a good Lord who has overcome a dark Friday and now stands victorious over death, daily overcoming our weaknesses and weariness.  He is, himself, our greatest respite.  He battles against the death of our own spirits that would cause us to give way to selfish concerns.  He extends his gracious hand to us through numerous aids and volunteers who give us hours of merciful respite each day and throughout each week.

So now we get a longer respite; five days away with, well, fewer cares.

As we go we can't help but be thankful to God for his grace, first, for pouring it directly into our lives as a daily respite, because we would simply dissolve into puddles without him.  But secondly, we are thankful for the grace he sends through so many ministers of his mercy.  To the many good and kind servants at Heartland Hospice, thanks to you all.  To the friends and helpers at Friends & Helpers, thank you. To Donna for her relentless love of Dad and Audrey and to her many volunteers who give us regular Sunday respite...thank you!

It is all so very good!
  

A Down Hill Ride

If there is anything that can be considered normal with Dad's care, it's that from day to day, his care is unpredictable. Like with Forrest Gump's infamous box of chocolates, 'you never know what you're gonna get.'

I guess the most consistent aspect of life with Dad has been that it is mostly a down hill ride. When he first came to us, he walked with a cane and drove a Lincoln.  As a long-time driver for SEPTA, our local public transit authority, he loved to drive and continued to do so long after doing so was sensible. 

One day I was doing chores around the house and just happened to notice him backing the Lincoln down the drive.  Problem was, my truck was parked just 20 feet behind him.  I rushed down the drive waving my arms, somehow managing to stop him just before he played bumper cars with my grill.  I moved the truck on to the street and returned to my tasks in the house.  Some time later, I looked out and there was the Lincoln, still parked on the drive.  I went to see if he was okay.  He said, "Oh, yeah, I just didn't realize you had moved the truck already." 

Eventually, for his own safety and the good of the driving public, we convinced his doctor to keep him off the streets.  The cane morphed into a walker.  After some time we began to notice, Dad was pushing the walker forward but forgetting to move his feet along at the same pace. If you know anything about gravity, you realize this is not a good scenario, so the walker became walker-with-assistance.  Long walks got too difficult with the walker, so his favorite trips to church and Booth's Corner, a local farmers' market, became trips in a wheel chair, but he continued his walks through the house to lessen his anxiety or stretch his legs, what we affectionately termed his 'caged lion act.'  

Two years ago this month, Dad attempted to walk alone to the bathroom.  He lost his balance, fell over backward, smacking his head hard on the edge of a glass table. He spent several months in a nursing facility.  Mobility has been a major issue for him ever since. 

Today, with the help of his remote controlled electric lift chair, Dad can some times push himself up to a standing position, but just as he was forced to give up driving the Lincoln, walking has become a memory, an activity of the past.  And so the down hill ride continues.

Recently, even Dad's sitting has become less active, spending many hours each day sleeping. No requests. No conversation. No sharing of memories of days gone by.  Just the long periods of sleep, staring at the TV or into the empty space between his chair and the walls before him. 

Funny. I remember days as a young son-in-law when I thought I couldn't bare to hear another word from him.  It seemed like so much endless jabbering, bottomless pits of information about the past, his beloved hobbies, his friends, the things he'd seen and done, all words wasted on a young man too self-focused and self-centered to place on them any value or significance. 

Now his voice is mostly silent, his nervous energy gone.  Each time he speaks a half sentence or a stammering phrase, I want to reach into his heart and, by pure force of my will, pull out a memory, something to remind us both of who he is, what he's done, what role he played in the life of my wife and family.  Sometimes I succeed, in part.   But most of the stories are incomplete, incoherent, or a confused mixture of vague reality and TV land fiction.  

Like Dad, perhaps I just have to recognize that some opportunities have passed me by and are forever relegated to my past.   As it always does, time will tell.