It is hard

It is hard.

I’m not sure what I thought it would be like but I think I hoped it would be easier than this. But, admittedly, I’m not that tough.

First of all, I’ve never done it before and there’s no one around who’s done it before to ask how to do it well. You have to prioritize and plan your days, weeks, months, without knowing how much time you actually have. You have to find the balance between complaining so that you can get relief and not complaining so that you don’t annoy all the nice people who are trying to help you. All this, I am learning, I am not that good at.

I went to bed the other night feeling ok but woke up an hour later with searing pain in my head. If it didn’t sound so odd, I’d say that I can feel the illness growing. My face went more numb and I had crazy pain in my jaw and head. The syndrome has spread everywhere. I took some pain medication and it’s subsided somewhat but was then wide awake and couldn’t stop thinking about how this is all going to go down. Will it be fast? Slow? More painful than it is now? I ask but there are, of course, no answers.

Dying is hard. And now I better understand some of the things people struggle with as they near death.

I remember my grandmother who, at the end of her life could not move, see or hear very well and wondered what Jesus was waiting for - why wouldn’t he take her home now? I understand how she felt. I remember my grandfather, who died just last year, as he patiently endured our entreaties to eat, our constant asking of “How are you feeling?” or our efforts to make him more comfortable. I understand how he felt. And then there are the moments where the friends ask, “why did you got sick?” Those questions, of course, are the hardest.

Although I do very little these days, the one thing I do is pray more. I’ve never been a great person of prayer, to my shame. But when I’m lying awake at night or trying not to throw up or just alone in bed - I pray. I pray because it is the only useful thing I can do. And, that said, it is a very good investment of the time I do have. I pray for the many people that God brings to my mind in the midst of my darkness.

So all that to say, I’m not very good at this. I am trying though. And when I think of the end, of how hard dying already is, and of how hard it will be for those I love when I’m gone, these are the verses that come to mind:


“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”

Isaiah 43:1-2

Dying is hard. But not as hard as it could be.