Oh, for the days when I was in my prime, when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house, when the Almighty was still with me and my children were around me.
Job 29:3-5Now Israel’s eyes were failing because of old age, and he could hardly see. So Joseph brought his sons close to him, and his father kissed them and embraced them.
Genesis 48:10
George and I have been friends for 40 years. In the early days we lived several blocks apart, saw each other with great frequency, played a lot of music together, and partnered in a number of projects, travels and adventures. For the past 30 years George has lived in another part of the country; yet we’ve remained close. As I prepared to take on the responsibilities of fatherhood, George joined me in a last fling as an itinerant musician for two weeks of playing music aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Alaska.
I’m fresh from a three day visit with George in Washington, DC, where he lives, the most time we’ve had together since that boat trip 23 years ago. We passed this visit within the confines of a rehab facility where George is recovering from surgery to remove implants from his brain which were intended to counter the symptoms of his advancing Parkinson’s disease, but became infected and had to be removed. While I’d been following the progress of the disease from an occasional problem to something he tried to hide from those who hired him to direct the music at Washington’s most prestigious theatres, to hands he could not depend on and a condition he could no longer hide, I was nervous when I learned he had decided to undertake this risky procedure. Even before he was scheduled for the most recent surgery, I knew I needed to see him, and made a plane reservation.
For me, this was both an obvious decision, and a big one. I tend to find it difficult to break away from the busy-ness of what I see as my work; I don’t spend money easily; I’m concerned about the carbon footprint I leave when I take to air travel. It’s easy to find reasons to put things like this off. But a year ago another old friend was ill, and I’d told myself I was going to visit while never finding “the right time” until my good-bye to her came over the phone. This time, I had to make space for what and who is important in my life.
The greater making of space, however, comes in the balance between accepting the inevitable changes that come with age, the fragility of life, the diminishing of powers, on one hand, and the ability to retain hope which allows whatever time remains to be time well-lived, time lived with gratitude rather than given to resentment or despair.
I needed to make space for the changes I observed in George, not knowing which were the temporary effects of recent brain surgery and heavy medication, and which the permanent result of his disease and ageing. I listened as my friend traversed from the sharp-witted, soulful beam of light he had always been to man who could not remember the name of his life-partner of 14 years. At times, I pushed his wheelchair around the halls of the facility, and at other times, as he sprang to his feet and made off under his own power, I followed closely, taking his arm to guard against the possibility of a fall. He was at once the old George I’ve known and loved all these years, and by turns a stranger to himself and me.
In making space for the changes I observed in George, the challenge is not only in accepting the decline in George’s health, but accepting my own diminishing abilities and mortality as well. I am not in control, and one day it may be me whom others visit in the rehab facility. This is where faith comes in, and it’s where one learns to cherish each moment of life we’ve been granted.
And so we told stories and laughed about our past adventures while in the midst of this new one, which involved both emotional and physical intimacies as I attempted to step into the role of a personal care-giver. When George said, “We’ve crossed a barrier to reach a new level,” I took it to be a reference to those physical intimacies. And he continued, “…the time we were in the old folks’ home together…” Sometimes we need to look at ourselves in all of our frailty and vulnerability and make space to accept exactly where we are, and laugh and love our way through it, giving thanks for each precious drop of life.
Ageless God, help me make space for what’s important, and to have the wisdom to know what’s important and the grace to accept it. And may I remember that there’s a bit of you, and a bit of George, in everyone.