DEATH
The Sting, the Victory

Audrey Metz

These three things I know intimately about death:

(1) It often strikes like lightning and leaves a stinging, consuming pain.

(2) It seldom comes at the "right" time.

(3) It causes beautiful memories to be etched in grief, pain, and—often—guilt.

Before Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote her book On Death and Dying, describing in detail the five stages of death, it was sometimes considered morbid and inappropriate to talk about death. In Christian circles, it was sometimes suggested that those who continued to grieve were not accepting the will of God. Through Kubler-Ross’ s book, we learned that it’s okay to be in denial, to be angry, to bargain with God, to be depressed, and finally to accept the unacceptable.

Lately, it seems to me that I have become too closely acquainted with death. Too many who were close to me have died. None gave me adequate time to bargain with God, to say all I wanted to say in my good-byes, to prepare me for the inevitable moment of separation.

I admit to some anger as I write that. Life was taken away from them. To accept their deaths while enjoying my life seems selfish. Shallow. Unacceptable.

My earliest experience with death was as a child, when my Uncle Titus died. I remember him as the uncle of the smiling eyes, kindness coming from deep inside those eyes. At the funeral, I sat on the front bench in the gray stone Towamencin Mennonite church. When a sob escaped from me during the service, it shocked me. I didn’t know it was going to come out for everybody to hear. And it annoyed the person sitting beside me—an elbow poked me into choking back the rest of my childish grief.

When my second child was about three years old, I miscarried at 12 weeks. I shed no tears over that loss. My doctor had told me that I should consider it Mother Nature’s way of getting rid of a faulty fetus. To give him credit, he did apologize for stating the situation in those hard, blunt terms. But the fact is I never gave myself permission to grieve, nor did anyone else. In fact, nobody seemed to consider this as a real death.

So I shoved the experience out of my life, convincing myself that this was not really a child. Months later, my mother-in-law mentioned "Your little angel in heaven." Her tears flowed easily. I wondered at her ability to cry about it when I had not shed one tear. From my mother-in-law I learned the importance of knowing loss, exposing it to the light of recognition, naming grief as necessary work.

In my middle adult years, I was asked to walk with a member of my Sunday school class through her journey with cancer. Wanda asked me if I would be willing to talk with her, listen to her story one-on-one, then write out her thoughts and present the paper to the class. I accepted her request as a compliment, never dreaming how our times together would come to affect me.

My time with Wanda in the last months of her life involved deep soul-searching on my part. Many times when I left her I was overwhelmed by disbelief that this was happening to this trusting person. Frequently I was jolted with anger. At one point, I exploded, "Wanda, how can you accept this so easily?"

Her patient response was "I love Jesus and am looking forward to meeting him. If I die—and I probably will soon—I accept it as God’s will."

Why is it that I had a much harder time with that than she did? I would go on living. She was dying, and she was saying "It’s all right. I accept this."

Many years later, it’s still impossible for me to think of death as a welcoming of God’s will. Rather, it gives me some comfort to know that Jesus wept at the graveside of his friend, Lazarus—that Jesus too had trouble accepting death. That knowledge gives me permission to question and grieve.

My friend Ellen died of Lou Gehrig’s disease. I was in a journaling group with her at the time. I remember the night she told us. "I want to live. I love life, but I have this disease for which there is no cure. So now I am on a new journey. And for as long as I have, I want to learn all it has to teach me." I cannot imagine looking death in the eye with such boldness, such daring.

The year I moved to D.C., my much-loved brother Floyd died. Six years older than I, he had always been my self-appointed knight, my hero. Although we had known he was ill, his death stunned me. I went to the National Cathedral to wander about anonymously, lighting a candle in one of the chapels, then standing in a circle with others in the nave to be given the sacraments as part of the regular noon schedule. As I accepted the sacraments, tears streamed down my face, and I remember the kindness on the priest’s face as he offered me the wafer and wine.

Two years later, in April 2001, it seemed perhaps my time had come to look into the face of my own death. I was 62 and had just been diagnosed with colon cancer. Surgery was scheduled less than two weeks later. During the days before surgery, I was to ask myself: If worst comes to worst, will I look Death in the eye, daring him to conquer my body, my will to live, or will I go "gentle into that dark night"? I was spared the answer. The pathologist’s report came back three days post-surgery: We Got It All. My own death summons had been delayed.

Before my surgery, I had called my friend Margaret to tell her my frightening news. She had hung up the phone in a rush of uncontrollable sobs. She was afraid I was dying. Three years and five months later, on September 21, 2004, Margaret was told she had acute leukemia and a week to live, tops. There was literally no time for those of us who lived at a distance, to say good-bye. There was only trying to maintain equilibrium, offering prayers and phone calls to the family, and making plans to travel, should death not be stayed by a miracle.

There was to be no miracle. She lived only six more days. I awoke at 4:30 that morning and got up to make coffee and have some quiet time before the city noises revved up to. At 5:30 the phone rang. Margaret’s son told me, "My mother made her transition from this life at about 4:30 this morning."

The thought came to me that perhaps my consciousness was with Margaret those first few moments as her spirit left behind the betrayal of her body. I like to believe that perhaps I was there, for just a fleeting moment, just before I awoke, to help her do that. Perhaps that was what awakened me. Perhaps, after all, I had said goodbye to her.

I wonder: if we did indeed have a few moments together as she was leaving this earth, what might our spirits have said to one another? How do you say goodbye to someone who has been your loyal friend, your patient confidant for 41 years?

Two months and two weeks after Margaret’s death, another friend died—same diagnosis, same prognosis. Four days after a diagnosis of acute leukemia, Luke was gone. In the days that followed, it was sometimes difficult to know if it was life or death that was surreal. Death had again slammed the door on a well-lived life, on many good memories. Those memories were now full of pain, taunted by "If only" and "What if" scenarios that will never have answers.

I know we must all die, eventually. Perhaps when it’s my turn, I will have lived long enough or well enough, finally, to accept death as boldly as my friends did. I can hope not only that their lives have enriched my living but also that their deaths have taught me something about how to die.

Among my first thoughts, on hearing of Margaret’s death, was this one; What an empty place she will leave in my life. At the same time, I knew that there can be no empty spaces where loved ones have shared my life. They are still here, each in her or his own place in my memories, alive with all the things we did together. They are a warm, living piece of my own personal history.

Although I can no longer share laughter and conversation with them, long rides on quiet country roads, coffee served in delicate teacups or serious mugs, walking through the first snowfall of the year together, they will always be there in the only place they’ll never die—in my heart and those of all whose lives they graced. Nothing can take that away.

Death will never have that victory.

—Audrey Alderfer Metz has lived in many states and is now enjoying the pigeons and people in Washington, D.C, where she manages the bookservice in The Potter’s House in Adams Morgan. When not otherwise occupied, she enjoys traveling—whether flying or driving her beautifully weathered 1990 Honda Civic.