Saturday, February 28, 2009

On Farewells

Papaw and Little Ben: not looking forward to saying good-bye.

As if it were yesterday, I can still hear the anguish in Benjamin’s voice as he asked, “Why do we always have to say good-bye to Grandpa Don and Grandma?” We were at the airport and our three-year-old son was resisting the inevitable parting from his beloved grandparents who were returning home to the United States. We would remain behind in Japan. As many times as that scene was repeated over the years, farewells just never got any easier.

More than 25 years later, saying good-bye continues to be an unwelcome but predictable part of our lives. Recently it’s been especially difficult, beginning with seeing off our now grown children and grandson at the airport after their Christmas-New Years visits. Then this month we got the surprising news that part of our Tokyo small group “family” will soon return to their home country—permanently. Only weeks earlier, we’d learned that another founding member of this group was being reassigned to a different nation. And on Thursday, yet another member announced she’s leaving Japan by the end of March. Such is life in an expatriate community: lots of comings and goings. But this knowledge doesn’t make it easier.

And then there’s little Rebecca in Zimbabwe. Touched by the story of this infant born with hydrocephalus, our small group tried to help her. Despite our best efforts which, unfortunately, were just too late, the doctor’s evaluation is that her little brain is irreparably damaged and that she cannot survive even six months more.

Death is a farewell of a different type. Although I’ve never met Rebecca, her situation (and all these farewells of late) have caused me to do some serious thinking. Without sounding morbid—believe me, I have no death wish—I’m slowly realizing yet again that confronting death should help me to live my life better. But the truth is, most of the time I resist thinking about death, especially my own. It’s as if I assume it can’t happen to me. Never mind that way down deep inside I know this is absurd. I just don’t go to that deepest place often and, as a result, I can pretend that life and death are not inexorably intertwined into one and the same package. But my foolery doesn’t change the truth.

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” Moses of old prayed wisely (Psalm 90:12)—a pray I echo today. When I stop avoiding the truth and remember that my days are limited, I will indeed live them differently. With gratitude to God for each hour he entrusts to me, I resolve not to squander my time or grasp it selfishly for myself. Instead, I determine to spend my days in people and activities that will outlive me. Only in doing so can I know without doubt that my time has been invested in ways that really matter. With this assurance, I can approach my own farewell confidently, knowing that it is far more than simply a good-bye to this earth. It is the arms-wide-open, ear-to-ear smiling welcome to an eternity where farewells are banished in the forever presence of God, my Father.