it’s not okay
In the yard where the chainsaw growls, I can only see blooms, white like lace, gathered and falling everywhere, spilling onto the road.
They’re cutting down that tree.
I want to stop and gawk, to tilt my head and ask, Why would you?
It’s a beautiful death. I’m stunned by the yard that looks like a bride’s elegant waist, the glowing curve of her hip, by lengths upon beautiful lengths of careful, petaled opulence rippling in the sunshine. Except for that snarling, toothy sound and the wood chips spitting, except for the naked tree with its fresh-sliced wounds, I might believe someone meant to dress the lawn for a celebration.
I want to carry the limbs away in my arms, as many as I can hold. This isn’t okay. Or at least, that’s how I feel.
That’s what the doctor says too, standing against the wall in the hospice center room where my friend Janet is dying. The doctor fingers the stethoscope that dangles around her neck, looking with sympathy toward Janet’s husband, Mike. This isn’t okay, the doctor says, gesturing expansively to take in the room, the bed, Janet and those of us who love her. We all shake our heads. No.
No, it isn’t okay, I’m thinking, holding Janet’s limp hand, smoothing the hair at her forehead with my thumb. They’ve folded the sheets back away from her feet to keep her cool. Janet has always been a petite woman, but suddenly she looks tiny and fragile, as though her fierce spirit spills out in steady progression, over the bed, through the open door. She’s like that wounded tree with its glory pooling.
We have to shed one life to gain another, and Janet was ready for this. “I hope this ‘death thing’ doesn’t take too long,” she said to me just the day before, smoothing the sheets over her lap with her hands.
We didn’t know Janet would die two days later in the thin space of morning, just before dawn, alone in the room with Mike, only that she was headed home. “You’re heaven bound, huh?” I’d said. It was the only time she smiled that visit.
Sitting beside her bed the first day we visited, Riley asks Janet when she will go; it’s the kind of thing that matters to Riley, the day, the time. Janet turns her head and smiles gently, says, “Well, I don’t know. That’s something for God to decide, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” Riley agreed, shifting to what she imagines to be more definable terms, like, “What time did you eat breakfast?” But of course, this is a timeless place, as any depot on the way to eternity should be, and Janet can’t answer that question either. It’s the past and also the future here; it’s all part of the present. My friend has entered the hinterlands.
It’s not okay. For over 40 years, in fact, Janet struggled with her sick, hurting body, and that also isn’t okay. Pain isn’t okay. Loss isn’t okay. Death has never been okay. In fact, that’s why Jesus came, why he died on the cross, why he was buried, why he rose on the third day. So that those who believe in Him will live, even though they die (John 11:25). And in Christ, it’s a beautiful death, stunning for the escape of eternal, grace-given glory. Our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. We grieve the crumbling clay; but we hope in robes like lightning, in the glowing curve of resurrection. I can just barely catch the glimpse of those things in Janet’s eyes now when she smiles.
In the street beyond where they cut down the tree, flower petals roll like wandering water, like tears dripping off our cheeks. Of course, it’s their tree, they can remove it if they want to, but I stand in the road wondering if this was something they planned. Why cut it down now, when it’s blooming? I wonder, even though decisions about when aren’t mine to make.
The day Janet dies, the day we wake up inexplicably in the black night and roll over to discover the text that says she’s gone, that same day, we’re called urgently to prayer in the afternoon for another friend suddenly rushed to the hospital. Janet dies before the new light is born and another friend dies before the daylight drifts into the night, and no, it’s not okay. Slow or sudden doesn’t matter. In either case, the loss feels like a violation. The creation groans (Romans 8:22), and those flower petals cover the glinting street, and I can hear the voices of my friends among the witnesses. The creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay (Romans 8:20); and so we grieve with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). But we grieve.
When Lazarus died, Martha’s why would you spilled out. It fell with a thunk at Jesus’ feet. Try as she might, Martha couldn’t–wouldn’t–shouldn’t–stuff her grief away. It’s not okay, Lord, she said, but with different words. And then, they talked of resurrection, the way Janet and I did just days before she died. And then even though Jesus knows he’s about to bring Lazarus right back from death that day, even though he can see right past the grave to glory, he stands with Martha and Mary and cries (John 11:35). Because death has never been okay.
