Strange joy

We enjoyed a nice Mother’s Day yesterday that started with breakfast in bed for Susan. Okay, so she has every meal in bed. Work with me here. She chose the bacon and cheese omelet over the oatmeal and relished a second course of vanilla frozen yogurt topped with fresh raspberries and blueberries, drizzled with boysenberry syrup. Later, instead of our traditional lunch at Randy & Dorothy’s, everyone came over for mid-afternoon dessert so Susan would be included. It was good family time.

I recall Mother’s Days past, when the kids and I would work furiously and secretly in the kitchen to prepare a partially elegant meal while Mom got ready for church. If there were fresh berries and something sprinkled with powdered sugar, it was partially elegant. We’d try to catch her after her hair was done but before she got fully dressed so we could coax her back to bed for the surprise delivery. I remember the kids gushing with excitement for the special presentation of breakfast and cards and flowers, and how their anticipation met with delight that she was enjoying what we’d prepared.

This year was different, like so many things for our family. Susan remains stable, neither improving nor declining. She knocked back a urinary tract infection this week with antibiotics and knocked back several more severe headaches with morphine. Like always, she’s in good spirits and is generally most alert just after waking from restful sleep.

Now in week 5 under hospice care, things have progressed differently than I thought when I didn’t know what to expect. I guess I still don’t know what to expect; but we’ve all gotten used to Susan’s bed in the den and the quiet routine of attending to her. Life on hospice in week 5 is strangely normal, strangely joyful, and strangely open-ended.

“Strange joy” borrows a title from Bob Bennett’s latest album, Joy Deep as Sorrow, a recording I recommend highly. The song speaks of peace in the middle of trial and “strange joy, barely understood, that from the night of trouble dawns the day of good.” We’re in the firm center of that mystery, with Susan not really dying but not really living and with us not really grieving but not really celebrating. We’re waiting for weighty things to transpire that are orchestrated by loving and unseen hands according to a divine timetable, while God’s people attend to us in prayer and with acts of kindness. We’re waiting.

But the joy is real and the peace is real. They mock our circumstances, a situation that should bring sorrow and chaos. This strange joy from God makes it possible for us to be okay, really. It’s nothing new for him to dispense – we’re just among the latest of countless people who have latched on to the power and mystery of the Cross. He supplies our purpose for living, comfort when dying, and resurrection hope beyond the grave. I love Jesus’ words, some of his last, in John 14:19: “Because I live, you also will live.” The gospel is so simple. Today we’re okay, really. In faith, tomorrow we will be too.