I knocked on the door gingerly, not knowing whether I meant it. It was more out of politeness really since the occupant of that shady room was in the throes of death. His name was Günther and I knew him for just over three years. He was someone who knew everybody and who could tell a story at a nod. He already knew enough about me that he could entertain people with it. He was a good man, somewhat delicate and prone to fear, but he would help anybody. Just the type of man you need as a janitor in an old peoples home. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of a deep lying anxiety and he knew I saw it, but he smiled a little embarrassed and said, “You know…â€
Lying in the bed and breathing hard, he is hardly the man I had come to know when I started work at the Care Home. It was the discrete smile and sparkle in his eye that made you listen to his tenor voice, singing as he spoke. He had a suave hairstyle decently grey, combed back and always in place. Now his hair was short, cropped because of the Chemo-Therapy, and his face was pale. Each breath was into the depth of his lungs, almost mechanical, through tightly pressed dry lips. Every now and again he would cry out short scraps of words, mostly “Mamaâ€. He would open one eye brusquely and then fall back into trouble sleep, breathing like a locomotive, as though he was in a hurry to get somewhere.
He had come to die. He had chosen our home, despite the reservations that the Care Staff had voiced, because he was part of our institution. He had worked here until he was sixty-four and he had continued to work here five years after reaching his pension. He was even on the committee for a while. Each Friday he accompanied the residents and guests to the Church service, joking along the way, greeting all and sundry. On Wednesdays he entertained the residents at a gossip-meeting, and boy, could he gossip. When he was told the terminal diagnosis, he immediately made plans to come to us.
His fear seized him at times, and he grabbed for straws, trying to pull himself out of the quagmire he had been sucked into. He clamped onto people who visited him, almost refusing to let them go, until reason loosened his grip and he told them, “till next time,†adamantly holding on. Günther liked living and the prospect of an unknown heaven didn’t make his death any easier. It was a path he had to go down alone, and he had so loved his wife. I think it was the task of going alone that was so daunting for him. He spoke seldom about death, except with our Lady Pastor, who was also a friend.
As I watched him lying there, I thought about the 22nd Psalm. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me…†and asked myself whether he would have wanted to hear that Psalm then. Would I want to hear such words in his position? But the truth of those words seemed clear to me at his deathbed. He called out every now and again and God seemed far off and holy, far removed from the room which most of us passed by, reluctant to be confronted with death. The question has been voiced, whether Günther was a believer, and whether he can find consolation in his faith. He hung on to a wooden cross as though his life depended upon it.
The Psalmist turns his vision towards his childhood and just as he didn’t choose his mother, he hadn’t chosen his God. Surrounded by fearful images, he throws himself into the arms of God and begs him to remain close – to be there. Perhaps by calling “Mama†Günther was calling for the only source of consolation he had experienced, though she had left him. He meant the Archetype of solace, the One who is there. Even though we have the tendency to run off, discovering the world, like we did with our own Mothers, this Eternal Father is the One who is there.
The One who has wordless communion with us; who is in our midst, even then when, like Günther, we are poured out like waters, and all our bones are spread apart; our heart is like wax; and melted in the midst of our bowels. When our strength is dried up like a potsherd; and our tongue clings to our jaw. And it may have been my hand that reached out to calm him, but it was the Spirit of God that brought us together, and is near to both of us, if we allow him to be.
Meister Eckhardt said, “If we are troubled by the thought that we are far from God, let us find consolation in the fact that God is close to us.â€
The Psalmist finally finds consolation and speaks the words, “You have answered me.†Perhaps this is the answer that Günther found as his breathing finally calmed, his fear subsided, and his last breath expired.
30.9.2005