A Jon Post

It has been 45 days since I’ve lived with the dying. 45 days ago I drove away from the dying and entered once again the homes and communities of the living.

While it’s been comfortable, joyful, loving, and restful to be with the living, I still miss the dying.

I have spent 45 days thinking and praying over the dying I left there. My friend and brother Torres, whose lymphoma darkens his veins and thoughts but not his spirit. My daughter and precious Loice, whose advancing breast cancer throws its tendrils from corner to corner of her tired and young body while she hopes for more time with her young children. My sister and cherished Mariana, whose metastatic breast cancer sears her with pain and weariness while she boldly looks at the difficulty of her coming days. Rosa, Eugênio, Armîndo, Joana, Custódio, and so many others dying or with whom I witnessed death…

All of them left the land of the living and welcomed me into theirs.

I’ve come to revere and love the company of the dying. I’ve come to appreciate that, though most of us would rather not, we will all be a part of adding to it one day.

 Most of us are afraid of that day. Most of us are afraid of being one of the dying.

Why is that? Why are we so afraid of dying?

When I say dying I do not mean the moment your heart stops, when brain activity ceases, when cardio-pulmonary activity has not been detected for however many minutes the doctor in the room deems necessary to declare a time.

I mean dying as an active verb. I mean dying instead of living. No one I have ever met has been afraid of being one of the living. Not that I’ve known of, anyway. Nearly everyone I’ve met, however, is afraid of being one of the dying. We are afraid of that time, be it years or days, in which we go from living our lives to dying our deaths. In fact, I believe most of us pursue every medical option possible, no matter how painful, how detrimental to relationship, no matter how much it ruins our ability to be wise, caring, loving or faithful, in order to stay in the land of the living.

Maybe, and I’m not sure on this, but maybe there comes a time for each of us where entering the land of the dying is the wisest, most loving, and most faithful thing we can do.

Christ seemed to think so.

His last week before his death seems to have been in the land of the dying, no matter how much his friends and disciples wanted him to remain in the land of the living. Maybe even more than a week. When he knew his death was coming, he spoke freely and often to his friends and disciples about it. He prepared them for it and, in the context of the coming of His own suffering and death, prepared them for theirs.

Through shortness of breath I have heard deep truths and seen profound wisdom. Through the lips and hands of the dying, I have begun to understand how to prepare for my own. By the example and encouragement of the dying, I have learned a deeper peace in Christ than I have ever known.

If you know someone who is dying, do not go to them in pity or thinking that you offer some great sacrifice by visiting them or seeing them. Go to the dying and try to learn from them what Christ tried to teach his disciples. Try to learn how to suffer well. Try to learn how to hope for home. Try to learn and be sustained by the dying, rather than offer sustenance or gifts of your own.

If you are one of the dying, know that I love you and wish I could learn from you. Please take this time that you are dying, the only one you’ll ever have, and teach it to those of us who are not in it yet. Help sustain the rest of us, who badly need sustenance, with your wisdom given to you in your dying. Please show us how to transition from living your life to dying your death and doing that in a way that knows Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings.