A Crazy End

I walked out of the room and down the hallway without a tear in my eye. Thinking if I should, was this something that warranted such? Perhaps I should try to fake an emotional response to something that I wasn’t compelled. Behind me my grandmother’s body lay slowly suffocating in bed. There was nothing that could be done, no ‘miracle’ cure that would have helped her. All that could be done is for the family to slowly watch her die. Or had she already died?

Ever since my mom was a child my grandmother had been plagued by schizophrenia. So ever since I had known her I had only known two ladies: One was tortured by voices telling her to do things, to leave places, to kill people, to hurt herself. And the other was a lady that was so doped up on drugs that she just sat in a chair and stared in a direction, for all of Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Easter. Only occasionally did a hint of personality come thru; perhaps, thru a glimpse or small comment she made indicating that she actually was concerned about something. But those moments were so far and few between. Perhaps I didn’t look hard enough for them, maybe if I sat and tried harder to talk with her. But I know those are just what-ifs posed by a mind that doesn’t want to accept the truth. In my mind she had been dead for quite some time. Perhaps she was never fully alive to me.

So that leads me to question, what is it that makes a person alive? I know that only the most naïve would attempt to say that it’s a body with a pulse and brain waves. I saw such a corpse today, one that was merely a flaccid piece of flesh struggling to maintain physical continuance. Within our own lives we pass people in the store that are deader than those great men of the past, because one is already forgotten; yet, the other lives on thru their ideas. Is it that she didn’t ‘do’ anything for anybody? I think this is hitting close to where I’m going, but not where I want to be. Perhaps it is in our actions that we are defined as who we are. And since those actions of hers were either non-existent or so minute and far-between, this might be the catalyst for the already commenced death. So the only real way to maintain life is to pour of yourself into another. It is like a spring, the moment the spring ceases to have water come out of it it is no longer a spring. It is merely a rock. Perhaps it is a beautiful rock, perhaps it is old and cracked. Maybe the rock will continue to have people coming to it looking for the spring; or maybe no one even knew it existed. Regardless, the life of the spring is seen by the water that the spring pours out. Likewise the life of a person is seen by the life (love, hope) that pours out of them. So the minute we cease to pour forth from ourselves is the moment that we really die. <>

Is it really that sad that this evening a life slipped away? No what’s sad is that long ago a life that could have been was destroyed and that’s when the real death began. The physical death only put the final seal on what stood the potential to be a great life, but instead was one spent in fear of the voices or in a drug induced trance. Who knows why God would allow a person to become like this, maybe she was just a means to a more important end. Perhaps this was a lesson for somebody to learn. Or maybe it was just something that happened and I’ll never know why. But one day I will, and I’ll have a great lot of other questions in store for my maker.