It was the summer of 1930, before most of these things had happened. I mean, the summer when Pop had made over to me the portion of my inheritance and threw open the door for me to run away and be a prodigal, or be a prodigal without running away from any earthly home, for that matter. I could very well eat the husks of swine without the inconvenience of going into a far country to look for them.
Most of that summer we were all together in London. The reason was, that we could be near the hospital and visit Father. I remember the first of those visits.
It was several months since I had been in London, and then only in passing, so I had really hardly seen Father at all since he had entered the hospital the autumn before.
So all of us went to the hospital. Father was in a ward. We had arrived much too early, and had to wait. We were in a new wing of the big hospital. The floor was shiny and clean. Vaguely depressed by the smell of sickness and disinfectant and the general medical smell that all hospitals have, we sat in a corridor downstairs for upwards of half an hour. I had just bought Hugo's Italian Self-Taught, and began to teach myself some verbs, sitting there in the hall, with John Paul restive on the bench beside me. And the time dragged.
Finally the clock we had been watching got around to the appropriate hour; we went up in an elevator. They all knew where the ward was--it was a different ward. I think they had changed his ward two or three times. And he had had more than one operation. But none of them had been successful.
We went into the ward. Father was in bed, to the left, just as you went in the door.
And when I saw him, I knew at once there was no hope of his living much longer. His face was swollen. He eyes were not clear but, above all, the tumor had raised a tremendous swelling on his forehead.
I said, "How are you, Father?"
He looked at me and put forth his hand, in a confused and unhappy way, and I realized that he could no longer even speak. But at the same time, you could see that he knew us, and knew what was going on, and that his mind was clear, and that he understood everything.
But the sorrow of his great helplessness suddenly fell upon me like a mountain. I was crushed by it. The tears sprang to my eyes. Nobody said anything more.
I hid my face in the blanket and cried. And poor Father wept, too. The others stood by. It was excruciatingly sad. We were completely helpless. There was nothing anyone could do.
When I finally looked up and dried my tears, I noticed that the attendants had put screens all around the bed. I was too miserable to feel ashamed of my un-English demonstration of sorrow and affection. And so we went away.
This particular passage from The Seven-Storey Mountain moves me deeply. I'm not sure if it's the image of the teenage Merton crying at the bed of his dying father. or if it's the image of Merton's father reaching out to Merton, unable to say what is on his confused mind. One last "I love you" or "I'm sorry to leave you" or "Pray for me." This passage just undoes me. Leaves me swaying and unrooted--a lilac bush in a tornado.
I have two best friends who have been/are being touched by loss during this pandemic time. The first recently lost her beloved sister just last week to cancer. As deaths go, my friend's sister's transition was peaceful and healing. My friend was able to affirm her love, read poetry to her, and say goodbye. My other friend has a father who was recently placed in hospice care. This friend is a Methodist pastor and understands better than most the process of loss, death, grief, and salvation. He's been through it hundreds of times with families. Yet, watching your own parent slip away is different. It makes you a child again, feeling as if the anchor chain holding you in place has snapped. You are adrift in a sea without shores.
Last night, I was cleaning at church with my wife. It was late, around 9:30 when we finished. We stepped outside. Above us, a rainbow stretched from one end of the sky to the other, as if the heavens were wrapped in tissue paper, waiting to be torn open on Christmas morning. It stunned me into silence as I thought of my two friends, one on one side of grief, one on the other, connected by this ribbon of color. Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Indigo. Violet. The visible spectrum.
There are so many hues we don't see in a rainbow. Turquoise. Sage. Rose. Mustard. In actuality, there are over a million colors present in any rainbow. We just can't see them with the naked eye. Think of that. How limited human vision is. Its boundaries are tiny. In the vast ocean of the universe, we see only a tiny seedpod floating in the waves. That's it.
It's only things like birth, love, sex, and death that give us a tiny glimpse of the eternal. Allow us to see the wider picture. Suddenly, we go from a Polaroid to CinemaScope. These moments crack us open and allow sun and darkness to pour in. We become living rainbows, full of every human emotion that's existed since the time Homo habilis roamed the African savannas and onward.
One of my friends has already been cracked open by loss. The other is in the process of being cracked open. They will both blossom into something bigger, newer. Like a time lapse of a seed sprouting. Maybe into trillium. Or bee balm. Or a rainbow stretching across a June dusk. Grief is rough, equal parts loss and relief, incredible sorrow and incredible beauty.
Grief is mystery and miracle. A prism of what eternity holds. Amber and gold. Honey and carnation. Vermilion and fandango.
Both of my friends are embracing that rainbow.
And for that, Saint Marty gives thanks.
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