A few days before Thanksgiving, I found myself sitting at the bedside of a friend who was dying. Just 61 years old, John* ended up in a nursing home in Kentucky after becoming seriously ill while visiting a friend one county over. It’s a long story, but he was not able to return to his home on the east coast. With no nearby friends or family, there was no one to sit with John in his final days—not that he really wanted anyone with him. As he got closer to the end, he pushed people away. I’ve read that this often happens as people near death; it’s an attempt to exert control over a situation which of course you cannot control, and it can also be a way to shield others from your suffering and avoid being a burden. But for a few hours, John let down his guard and allowed me to enter his very private world. He was a single guy with a very thick southern gentleman accent who drove a truck for a living. He was used to taking care of himself. Accepting help from others was something he could rarely bring himself to do. As John drifted in and out of wakefulness, we talked some, but mostly I attempted to relieve his suffering in any way he would allow. He asked for a cold soda. I happily obliged. Just a few days prior he’d been able to hold his cup and take a sip unassisted, but now he couldn’t hold the cup because his hands were shaking so badly. After asking if he wanted help, I brought the straw to his lips. When the lunch tray arrived, he decided he wanted a few bites of the sloppy joe style sandwich. He asked me to remove the bun, and I fed him a mere two bites of beef before he decided he was finished.
We sat there in silence for the most part. He was never much of a television watcher, and he did not want to listen to music. For a few minutes we listened to the audio Bible player I brought him, but when it came to the Christmas story in Luke 2 he asked me to turn it off. He was cold and I pulled up his blanket. He seemed annoyed if I spoke very much, and so I tried to be still and quiet. At one point I asked him to tell me which part of the country was his favorite, since I knew he’d traveled all across America. He said, “I wish people would stop asking me that. You asked me that already.” I had not asked him that, but I apologized and was quiet again. A minute or two later he said, “I really like Montana. It’s so beautiful.” I smiled to myself. He apologized for being grumpy, and I told him he had no reason to apologize. I knew he wasn’t himself and was in and out of his normal mindset.
I have often thought of the verse in Luke 2 that says Mary “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” I try to do that when I find myself in a situation that I know will have deeper meaning and significance beyond what I can fathom in the moment. This was one of those times. I made a mental note of the room and the way it felt, the sounds and scents and feelings it stirred. I was sitting in a cold folding metal chair. The room was nearly dark as the day outside the window was gray and John didn’t want the overhead light on. The door was open—also at John’s request—so hallway sounds infiltrated the room. Sounds that had no business barging into such a holy place. The lunch cart going down the hallway. Staff calling out to one another. Alarm bells going off frequently as people coming to the front door of the facility failed to ring the bell and tugged on the locked door instead. These sounds didn’t belong in the presence of someone who was approaching the edge of eternity, someone whose once strong body had finally succumbed to the cancer that ravaged it and robbed it of its autonomy and dignity.
A week or two prior, when it was becoming obvious that John was probably not going to live very much longer, he told me he felt like there was a darkness over him, like there were dark shadows around him in his room. At the time, I thought he was talking about an evil presence, because I know he tended to be charismatic in his Christian beliefs and was very aware of the spiritual battle always going on in the unseen realm around us. I prayed that God would cause the darkness to flee and give John peace.
The last Sunday of Advent, when I was preparing some thoughts for a little memorial time we were going to have at the nursing home to honor John and the others we said goodbye to this year, I suddenly connected John’s comments about darkness to one of the verses from the Advent carol, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” “O come thou Dayspring come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night. And death’s dark shadows put to flight.”
Dayspring is an archaic term for dawn or sunrise and is used in some translations of Luke 1: 76-79 when Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, prophesied about John preparing the way for the Messiah. He said,
“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Jesus Christ is the Dayspring, the One who brings light to the world. His light shines on the hearts of men and shows us our need for a Savior. Without Him, we would forever live in the darkness, in the shadow of death, with no hope of escape.
I can’t know for sure, but I don’t think the darkness that John felt was an evil presence. I think John was nearing the space where the veil between this world and the spiritual world grows thin. That is a darkness that God brought John through, and now he lives forever in a world with no more night, in the eternal light of Christ.
The last candle that is lit during Advent is the Christ candle. It is the candle that simply but gloriously proclaims, “The Light has come!” “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” Isaiah 9:2.
Christmas makes it possible for us to find hope and joy in the midst of sorrow and loss. John was great at giving advice and he often had kind words of encouragement for those around him who were struggling. Neither of us could have known it at the time, but what he said to me in those last days when he told me about the darkness around him has actually turned out to be words of hope. Why he allowed me into those very private and holy last moments I’ll never know. He did eventually ask me to leave his room; he told me to go home and get ready for Thanksgiving with my family. As I left the building and walked to my car, I knew it was the last time I’d see him on this earth. And it was. But I also know that one day I will see him again. He’ll be walking again, and instead of marveling at the beauty of Montana we’ll be in awe of the glories of heaven and we’ll live forever in the light of Christ.
*Out of respect for privacy, names and identifying details have been changed.
