Comfort care, revisited

Two years, minus eight days, ago:

Comfort care, for the living, is the cell phone that rings at a random hour, with the voice of an old friend on the other end of the line who says, “Look, I know you’re up. Walk out of the room and talk to me.”
— ‘Comfort care,’ 18 March 2002

Some knowledge we don’t ask to have, but receive despite the avoidance of asking. Knowledge - knowledge of matters of true importance - cannot be un-learned. The bitterest lesson of death’s finality is the appreciation of the innocence we had before the lesson.

Jody will lose his father soon. How soon, no one knows, but as evidenced by our phone calls, it likely won’t be long.

Two years ago I was on one end of those phone conversations, and now I am on the other. I remember how much my friends struggled to find the right words to talk me through the worst of the days, how sometimes all they could do was sit quietly on one end of the phone while I cried into the other.

It’s not much easier on the other side of the conversation.

The decision to sign a full DNR order for a family member is one hallmark of one of the most difficult times in life. Life is often difficult, sometimes even almost unbearably so. Sometimes the most difficult part of living is accepting that matters are simply out of our hands.

Keep Jody and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

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