As we walked out to the car, Jeff paused twice. Once to catch his breath and once more to cough and tell me how difficult this simple task of walking to the driveway was for him. As Jeff entered the passenger side of the car, his wife sat down behind the steering wheel, each on their new side of the car.
This brief walking journey to the car came after we spent the afternoon celebrating a few family birthdays. While birthdays were the stated purpose for getting together, I was well aware that just under the surface of celebration was the the heavy reality that this was one of the final times I would spend with my brother-in-law while he was still alive.
Jeff had been living with cancer for about five years. We lived through the shock of the initial diagnosis, surgery and treatment. We lived through the multiple trips to Stanford and celebrated each time he shared a good report. We also grieved with Jeff each time new tumors were discovered or that a chemotherapy did not seem to be working.
However, when we found out two weeks prior to this family gathering that the doctors had exhausted all options for treatment and that cancer was now overwhelming his body, our time table for spending time with Jeff was shrinking.
There are many things I will remember from that last family gathering: I enjoyed watching Jeff cheer on his favorite San Francisco Giants as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers again (see picture). I will remember smiling while the family was talking back and forth and Jeff shared a few quiet text messages with me from across the room. These short text messages were part of our daily behavior. One of us would celebrate finding a reminder of God’s love somewhere on Twitter or we would cringe together when we found an example where the church was struggling to show God’s love through racism, gender, or religion. In the middle of everything going on that day, Jeff continued to find/send me something he found that he knew I would appreciate. I will also remember the few moments I had to sit and just visit with him quietly and remind him that he had been a great example to me of what it meant to be a husband and father.
However, the one thing I cannot seem to shake from our time together that afternoon was what Jeff said after that long walk to the car. He sat down and caught his breath and in that awkward moment of saying goodbye looked up at me and said: “Love you brother. I’ll see you later.”
That’s a phrase we all say when we leave people who live in close community with us, right? Jeff and I are not distant relatives. In fact, I knew I’d probably hear from him on Twitter before I drove an hour up the highway to my house. We were in daily communication with one another. Yet we didn’t SEE each other EVERY day, so a parting comment like this was totally appropriate: I’ll see you later.
This time it was different though. There was an acute awareness for both of us that this might be the last time I was going to see him or the last time we were both going to sit and talk together. His cancer was moving fast and his body was being overtaken. Jeff was preparing for his departure. He was having last conversations. He was wrapping up what was important to him on this side of death. When he said, “I’ll see you later.” He and I both knew the full impact of what he was saying with this “double statement.”
Truthfully, this was a perfect thing for him to say to me, because it was true in the fullest sense. I did in fact get to see Jeff later, but even if I didn’t, I am going to get to see Jeff later. That is the beautiful part of everything Jeff and I love about our Christian faith. This life we live here with one another is brief. It is temporary. The Christian life is so much more. It is forever.
For the C.S. Lewis Narnia fans, this is what he describes in his book, The Last Battle. In this book there is a section where he talks about old Narnia (earth) and the new Narnia (heaven).
“It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different — deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if ever you get there you will know what I mean.
It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried:
I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!””
I did get to see Jeff a few more times and I received dozens of texts and tweets from him. He had much more to say and much more to share. I personally love that my final text I received from Jeff was just a few days before he died. He was acknowledging that I was celebrating Talk Like A Pirate Day. More than anyone in Kendra’s family, Jeff understood that I could be both fun and serious.
Here is the hard part of this blog post. I have always said that I write theMangoTimes for only three people. Jeff was one of those people, so I’ve lost 1/3 of my focused audience. I’ve decided I will still write and podcast with those three people in mind. Although Jeff won’t read what I write (or send me my grammar corrections), what I think about and what I choose to include in theMangoTimes will always have him in mind as he continues to press higher up and further in.
Love you brother, I’ll see you later.
Quietly making noise,
Fletch