in so many words

Last night I made an unexpected trip to the hospital. I received a call yesterday afternoon from my pastor - he said that Rick, one of my good friends and a fellow musician who I’ve been playing with for over 20 years, was going in for 3-way bypass heart surgery that night. For me, and for Rick’s wife Pam, and just about all of Rick’s friends, this was a major shock. Because Rick is one of the healthiest guys we know. He is just 6 months younger than me, but he is in much better shape. He works out regularly, watches what he eats and is generally a pretty active individual. He’s fit, trim, mentally quick and involved in civic and church activities, and last night they split open his chest and repaired 3 arteries, at least one of which was 90% blocked. He actually had chest pains on Monday, then the pain went away so he thought he was OK. But one of his doctors recommended that he go to the hospital for tests, and once the heart surgeons saw the results of Rick’s tests, they took him into surgery right away. I saw him briefly when he came out of surgery, and of course he was totally drugged out, but he looked good and the doctor said the surgery went very well. Emily and I went back tonight, and except for feeling tired (and the dozen or so tubes stuck in his chest/abdomen) he looked and sounded good. And I am praying for a good recovery for him - I know he will not like having to be still and move slow, but that is what’s ahead for him.

It was a bit of a reality check for me - I’m about the same height as Rick and I’m just six months older, but I’m 40 to 50 pounds heavier than he is. I exercise as little as possible, and I eat too much chocolate. Of course, I know that there are other factors that lead to heart attacks, like genetics and stress, but Rick did all the right things and I do a lot of wrong things, yet I wasn’t the one laying in bed with tubes stuck in my gut. I am a member of Weight Watchers, although I tend to have a very difficult time staying under my alloted points or getting the exercise I need. And it’s even harder when I am feeling stressed, which has happened a lot in the past year. But I’m going to keep trying … I’ll stick with Weight Watchers and try to get more exercise, and hopefully Rick won’t have to come and visit me in the hospital.

I read the news today, oh boy…

This morning, my friend Jane died of cancer. It was a shock to me, not because of the cancer - I knew she had it - but because I hadn’t talked with her or her husband Cy since August and I didn’t know that the cancer had advanced that far. Jane developed cancer several years ago, but went into remission. Then earlier this year she was told that the cancer was back, and she started treatment. But this summer the doctors discovered that the cancer had moved into her lymph nodes, which is very bad news.

Jane was an artist. She was very creative - it seemed like she always had some kind of project that she was working on. Several years ago she gave me a watercolor painting of a barn in a field, which is one of my favorite pieces of art and is still hanging on my living room wall. She was very kind, with a quiet wisdom that only made me feel encouraged when she offered her advice. She seemed to enjoy my sense of humor, and we could get together after long periods of absence and talk and laugh with ease. She was not a vegetarian, but she and Cy loved veggies and she made them a part of most of her meals, and she also who grew a lot of her own food. I don’t care for veggies, and that was the source of a little joke between us about vegetables. Once when I was visiting she gave me a small bag of sugar candies made to look like peas and carrots. I guess she thought that was the only way to get me to eat veggies.

Cy and Jane were married 29 years, and they genuinely loved each other. They struggled through the same things many couples struggle with - trying to buy their first house, seasons where the money was tight, raising Jane’s two boys from her first marriage, then having two more children, a boy and a girl… typical married-life issues. And they were good friends to me as I struggled through my life… tolerant of me as a young rowdy musician type, compassionate when my first marriage ended in divorce, encouraging as I spent several years living single, and supportive when I married Emily. In fact, Jane and Emily found they were kindred spirits, both of them being creative women who lived their lives following Jesus, and both being artists who came to appreciate each other’s work. I’m disappointed that they didn’t get to spend more time together.

As I spoke with Cy he wondered aloud why someone, a wife and mother as kind as Jane, should die from cancer while people like terrorists or brutal dictators live seemingly healthy lives. This is probably a question of faith that comes to many - why does God allow evil people to live while good people suffer painful deaths. I think the answer is faith itself - do we trust God, not just in good and pleasant times, but in light of terrible, painful events? If we believe in God, can we say that we trust Him in all things, even with the life - or death - of a loved one? Can we cry out in our grief that, even though we don’t see or understand the reason, we believe that God has a reason, and we trust Him?

For Cy, who misses his wife terribly, his response is simply:
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him“.