Monday, February 07, 2005
Take me to the shadowlands....
Sara and I watched the film Shadowlands the other night, the first time for me. Having read A Grief Observed I was feeling a bit apprehensive knowing Hollywood’s ability to completely devastate something beautiful. Anyway, it turned out to be a rather touching film. My only issue was Joy and Jack's peculiarities and quirks seemed to be overdone for dramatics.
What stood out to me as I sat on the couch with my beautiful wife, pregnant with our next child, with our young son sleeping in the next room, was the idea that to choose to love is at the same time to choose to lose. I guess that's an age old thing grappled with in every culture and time, but for me it is finally very close to home, and very real.
I do not think this would have been so intense had I not had such an upclose view of Devron's death. A common cold turned to pneumonia caused by a blockage in the lungs. The blockage turned out to be cancer. They gave him at best a couple years to live. I saw him almost every week during that period, not only him but his family all bracing for the inevitable. There were moments toward the end that were so terrible I could hardly bare it. Eventually, the call came early one Sunday morning, Devron had left us. Within a nine month period the cancer spread rapidly throughout his body and took his life.
I've seen death more than I had planned on at this place in my life. I thank God though for the brevity and sobriety He has graciously brought before me. I'm so forgetful, I lose focus easily, and my grip on reality is often loose at best.
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
Sara and I watched the film Shadowlands the other night, the first time for me. Having read A Grief Observed I was feeling a bit apprehensive knowing Hollywood’s ability to completely devastate something beautiful. Anyway, it turned out to be a rather touching film. My only issue was Joy and Jack's peculiarities and quirks seemed to be overdone for dramatics.
What stood out to me as I sat on the couch with my beautiful wife, pregnant with our next child, with our young son sleeping in the next room, was the idea that to choose to love is at the same time to choose to lose. I guess that's an age old thing grappled with in every culture and time, but for me it is finally very close to home, and very real.
I do not think this would have been so intense had I not had such an upclose view of Devron's death. A common cold turned to pneumonia caused by a blockage in the lungs. The blockage turned out to be cancer. They gave him at best a couple years to live. I saw him almost every week during that period, not only him but his family all bracing for the inevitable. There were moments toward the end that were so terrible I could hardly bare it. Eventually, the call came early one Sunday morning, Devron had left us. Within a nine month period the cancer spread rapidly throughout his body and took his life.
I've seen death more than I had planned on at this place in my life. I thank God though for the brevity and sobriety He has graciously brought before me. I'm so forgetful, I lose focus easily, and my grip on reality is often loose at best.
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.
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