The suddenness of death

J. Michael Sharman
Published: August 18, 2008

The choir director in our church, Clareece Eaton, had for years been the main care-provider for her hus-band, Harold, who is frail and in his 90s.

At church on Aug. 3, our pastor mentioned that Clareece had called and said she wouldn’t be leading worship that day because she wasn’t feeling well. Nothing serious, she said, she just thought she had gotten a touch of the flu.

She died in the early hours of the next morning.

Even though she was in her 80s, she was active, vibrant and healthy. We never thought she would go before Harold. Suddenly, though, she was dead.

The day of her funeral, we heard that my 94-year-old mother-in-law had been admitted to a hospital in Oklahoma City and was not expected to recover.

My wife, Nancy, and I began looking at flights and waiting for the expected call.

Last Saturday, Nancy and I were at a friend’s farm checking on some hay for the winter when I got a call on my cell phone from her middle brother, Glenn.

Glenn never calls my phone direct, he always calls Nancy, and so I knew it was not good news. His trembling voice confirmed it.

“Is Nancy with you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Phil’s been killed.”

Phil James was the husband of Nancy’s sister, Jackie.

As the confusion of facts began to sort themselves into a painful reality, we learned that Phil had been riding his motorcycle down a mountain road in Big Horn County, Wyo. after checking on one of his work sites. The road had a straight patch with one of those gorgeous long-range Rocky Mountain views. Phil apparently looked too long off to his side and did not see the curve and the concrete abutment in time.

In an instant, Phil became “Phillip L. James, April 11, 1953 - August 9, 2008.”

My mother-in-law has been released from the hospital and is now recovering in a different care facility, getting a few days of physical therapy.

About a month ago, a nurse from my own mother’s care facility called to say that my mother, who has had Alzheimer’s for many years, is in her final decline.

The nurse suggested that it was time for Hospice to start coming on a regular basis.

With each ring of the phone, my four siblings and I wonder if it will be “the call” about mom. But as Phil’s death has shown me, death is sudden and not always in the sequence that we expect.

All we can do about the suddenness of death is to grab hold of the immediacy of life. We’ve all heard that old phrase, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” It might be the last one, too.

When the dual realities of the suddenness of death and the immediacy of life really hit us we realize we have no time to waste before mending the relationships which have been broken by our petty pride.

Imagine that you will take your last breath today.

What fractures do you need to heal in your relationship with God?

If your friends and family were to be attending your funeral on Saturday, what do you need to do today?

In your wounded relationships with God and with man, you may need to say five things to a friend or family member to prepare for a death that could come today or to heal for a life that may have 50 more years to go:

1 — I am sorry.
2 — I was wrong.
3 —What can I do to make it right?
4 — I’ll not do it again.
5 — Will you forgive me?
A young cowboy came to me after Phil’s funeral, crying, saying that he had done Phil and Phil’s sons wrong in a lot of ways, and the last discussion he ever had with Phil was a pretty furious argument.

I told him it was too late to try and make it right with Phil, but that he would die a little bit every day until he did whatever it took to make it right with Phil’s sons.

Don’t delay fixing the fractured relationships in your life. You just never know when the day it is too late has arrived.

J. Michael Sharman is an independent columnist who practices law in Culpeper. His column appears Tuesdays in the Star-Exponent.