Losing Mike
by Linda McCabe | 26 December 2024 |
On November 20, 2024, exactly six weeks to the day from his diagnosis of stage four esophageal cancer, my husband of 41 years passed away at home.
We had cancelled the oncology appointment. Instead, we had an anointing and enrolled Mike directly in hospice care. We had time to set things in order, say goodbye to family and friends, and talk about everything that mattered.
I know that anger is sometimes part of the grieving process, but it was not part of mine, and I think I can say the same for Mike. Nor was “Why us?” part of our initial response—nor our later response, either.
I am not claiming that we exist on a higher plane, beyond the reach of grief. Nor am I saying that it’s wrong to feel anger. But because some thought our reaction to Mike’s prognosis was unusual, I wanted to write about what led to our reacting as we did.
Human hockey puck
I grew up with the belief, absorbed from a parent and my environment, that every event was God allowing Satan to attack us in order to develop our characters. Nothing that happened was too small to be assigned intent by an enemy or a deity.
The result was a sort of “hockey puck” mentality, where life events were the result of forces beyond our control—think Job—and we had little to say about it. The person subject to such forces feels like a victim, which eventually leads to anger, because “I did nothing to deserve this.”
My early belief system also involved the notion that “If I live perfectly, God will reward me and will keep bad things from happening”—which, it would then stand to reason, leads to the mentality that if I eat, dress, and act right, and something bad happens, God isn’t being fair. God has not held up his end of the bargain—a feeling that children may be especially susceptible to. Or, maybe, I did do something wrong to deserve this—and I might not even know what it is!
I have known of people who believed that, since they ate vegetarian all their life, they were owed protection from cancer. That if someone has a stroke or needs surgery, it is a sign of spiritual weakness or sin in their life. That if they had only stayed on that raw food diet, or gotten more consistent exercise, then the bad thing would not have happened.
I have also had to work my way through personal healing from childhood sexual abuse and trauma. For some, apparently, God was their childhood rescuer, protector, and comforter. But for me, the god I was raised with (and in whom I no longer believe) was complicit in the trauma. My recovery process has been, in part at least, secular—and that was on purpose.
Yet that process enabled me to form a belief in a very different God. I decided long ago that if getting to heaven required being a part of the belief system I started out with, I would rather not go.
If you disagree with me, I am fine with that. I am sharing my experience. Nor am I judging others who choose to prolong their lives through whatever means necessary for their own reasons. Each person is unique, and no one can decide for another. Mike’s age, stage of life, temperament, diagnosis and prognosis, and his desire not to spend his last few months in medical care, all played a part in his choice.
Bad things happen
I have experienced losses in my life, and have observed others on their journeys of loss. I have concluded that we are not hockey pucks. Loss happens. Sometimes it is a result of our own unfortunate choices. Sometimes it is because of someone else’s cruelty, incompetence, greed, or pain.
But most of the time it is just because we live in a world where evil exists.
There are things about my own choices and behavior that I can control, like how I deal with what happens and the choices I make for the future. But many things, especially during childhood, just happen. Just as being born into a certain country, race, socio-economic status, and religion gave me privileges that a child born in, say, Gaza at the present time, doesn’t have.
When I look at the big picture, I see a world where it is estimated that over 122 million people have had to flee their homes because of disasters or wars, and where domestic violence hotlines receive more than 20,000 calls per day. So I can’t ask “Why me?” when something bad happens to me. I just can’t.
Rather, why not me? Mike and I had often discussed, especially when out on walks, how grateful we were for our years of life and health. Our life was not untouched by pain and sorrow, but we ended up in a good place, with no financial or major health problems. Our sons are both responsible and compassionate.
And we would also sometimes say “I wonder when the other shoe is going to drop?” Because we knew it could at any moment. More than once we discussed what our course would be if a no-hope, terminal diagnosis appeared, for either of us. Through our years in ministry, and my time as a hospice chaplain, we had watched families who refused to let go, putting the patient through procedure after painful procedure, long after there was any hope for remission or quality of life.
We watched, and took notes.
People of faith
So when it happened to us, we were not starting from zero. When the emergency room doc took us into that little room and closed the door and gave us the bleak report from the CT scan, we looked at each other and we knew. Mike said to him, as we both were fighting tears, “We are people of faith, and we will get through this.”
I have heard of people in their 80s and 90s, raging at God and even refusing to accept news of their impending mortality. But none of us are getting out of here alive, and how it ends—at least for the most part—is not up to us. So why should we believe that our story should end differently?
Our spiritual journey is not intended to be a pattern for anyone else, and I am not judging you if yours is different. All of us are trying to make sense of our world, and we each find explanations that help us do that.
We were and are grateful for so many things. And that it was ending earlier than we would have chosen was not something we blame God for. Sadness, yes. Loss and grief, absolutely.
But anger or feelings of betrayal or unfairness? No.
When you don’t believe that God is the puppet master pulling all the strings, you don’t blame Him when a string breaks.
Linda McCabe is a Georgia-Cumberland Conference Assistant Auditor and treasurer trainer. She lives in Tennessee. She is mom to two grown sons and one Catahoula dog named Maggie. She enjoys growing things, nature photography, hiking and biking with friends, and writing.
