From the Salisbury Post (9/1/2019)
https://m.salisburypost.com/2019/09/01/roger-barbee-an-act-of-grace/Roger Barbee: An act of grace
In March, 2015 when I heard the news that my high school wrestling coach had been
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I did not hesitate to travel to see him. I called our team
captain, David, and tried to get him to drive the few hours and see Coach Mauldin. He
said, “I can’t. I don’t want to remember him that way.”
While I respected David’s privilege, I tried more than once to persuade him; all failed. He
attended the funeral, but did not see our coach in the hospital before he died. Mary Ann,
my wife, reminded me that many people would agree with David and not go see a dear
friend or even relative who was at death’s door.
Ten months later I received an email from David asking me to call him. Scared of some
dire news, I called him immediately. What he had to share was bad, but like all situations,
an offering of good and a chance for service was also present. David had received a call
from the wife of one of our high school teammates, Randy.
He and David had been best friends in high school, and their friendship had lasted into
their seven decades of life. Randy was dying of cancer after a long fight, and he wanted
David to come see him. David asked me, “Are you glad you saw Coach before he died you
know, the way he was?”
Death is so simple, but made so complicated. We complicate it by such phrases as, “He
passed” or “He met his maker” or “He went to be with the Lord” or “We lost him.” Such
language, it seems to me, attempts to deny the one fact all living things share-death. As
Terry Tempest Williams writes concerning her mother’s cancer, “And by denying her
cancer, even her death, I deny her life. Denial stops us from listening.” The act of dying
entails much, and it is often ugly or sudden or messy or cruel and always sad for some of
the living.
But the dying of a body need not define a life well lived and a life that was gladly shared
with a good friend. Randy’s wish that David come to him was, I believe, the reason he
needed to go. Yes, David feared the unknown of seeing his good friend dying, but Randy
had his fears, too. Norman Cousins, who survived two critical illnesses, writes: “Death is
not the enemy, living in constant fear of it is.” Our fear, like our denial, keeps us from
hearing.
Now, I admit to never having gone through the death of but one loved relative, Connor, a
brother-in-law who died suddenly. However, I have had some dear friends die, and I
have experienced that emptiness when the world, as I know it, has a void. Like my
brother-in-law, my friend Jim died suddenly while getting his boat ready for his annual
two weeks on Lake George. No “good-bye” there. Clare, my Canadian friend, died from a
fall down a flight of steep and long stairs, but I had watched him for five summers battle
cancer with poise and courage. Again, no “good-bye”. Willie, my college roommate, and I
shared many hours as he faced the return of his cancer after a twenty-five year absence.
I remember him asking me to give him a cigarette as he lay on his bed. I commented to
him that he was dying of cancer, and he said, “But not of lung cancer. Give me the
smoke.”
As I sat rubbing the feet of Hooper, my fellow teacher and coach, who would soon be
dead, he looked at me and said, “It’s okay. I’ve had a good life.” All were in their midfifties
or early sixties, much too young to die such a death or any death. Yet, I am not
suggesting that I had or have any special sense or awareness of what each of them was
experiencing, but I am suggesting that I had an opportunity and an obligation. The
opportunity to share some time with a dear friend presented itself, and I would have been
remiss in not taking advantage of it, just as if he were going to live for years. The
obligation was that they each asked me to come, and I had to honor their need, not mine,
and listen. And, I miss the lost opportunity to share some last time with Connor, Jim, and Claire.
As I tried to gather words for David, I thought back to those years in the 1960s, and of
David and Randy and their friendship. I then called to tell David how those last hours with
Coach Mauldin were a blessing for me because I was given the chance to minister to
him: to listen as he talked of our shared times, to watch him sleep the anxious sleep of
an acutely ill person, and to hear his mumbling while he slept.
Once he mentioned how his two-day beard irritated, and I had the pleasure of shaving
him as he sat on the side of his bed. I told David that, yes, part of my memory of Coach
was of those hours in the hospital, but there were other memories of wrestling matches,
bus trips for matches, the party three years ago where eighty or so of his wrestlers came
to honor him, and of his visits to our home in the Valley. I told David that yes, I remember
Coach as he was in the hospital, but for me that shared time is only a part of my memory
of him, and it does not define his life or our relationship.
I reminded David that our dying teammate, and his best friend, was more than the body
losing its battle with cancer. I asked him to remember the wrestling matches, the double
dates they shared, the school year book, and their shared love for pizza. I asked him to
try and view Randy’s wish as an honor for him to be wanted at such a time. David
tearfully said, “But, I don’t want to remember him like that.”
Time passed before I heard from David. He called me as he was waiting for a flight home
to tell me that he had visited his old friend. He told me how the Randy dying of advanced
cancer was not the Randy of their youth, but there were glimmers of the young Randy.
He told me that Randy wanted me to call him, which I did. His flight was boarding, and he
told me that he would call me in a few days. That was four days ago, and this morning,
January 25, he emailed me that “We lost Randy early this morning.”
Later I will call David and tell him that I did talk with Randy. I will tell him that Randy told
me how much he enjoyed seeing him. David paid an emotional price in visiting Randy
because he was fearful of what he would see and possibly do wrong, but he overcame
those fears and performed an act of grace. Whatever the cost to him, it was priceless for
his old friend.
Roger Barbee lives in Mooresville. Contact him at rogerbarbee@gmail.com
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