A Rainy May Day
I found out this morning that a good friend of mine died Thursday evening. I don't really know what to do about it?
Bill and I had been friends for about a year and a half. We met when Jared and I started to vollunteer at his nursing home; attempting to bring a bit of the Kingdom into that tomb. Things haven't always been smooth but I really did count Bill amoung my good friends. We would talk about literature and philosophy mostly, along with Hitler and Facist Germany. For reasons I never sorted out Bill was facinated with facists. Bill had been a grade school English teacher in his earlier years but fancied himself a schollar of Ivy Leauge credentials.
He also attempted to live the life of a Ivy Leauge playboy. He got himself mixed up in some awkward situations with the other residents and nurses at the home regarding promised engagement rings and romantics get-aways to the Holy Land or Paris. On one occation a nurse had taken him too seriously and had flirted back a little too aggressivly for even Bills comfort leading to a complaint to the Alberta protection of persons in care comittee.
But for all Bills misdirected affections he always had a soft spot in his heart for the wife of his second of two failed marriges; a mexican senora whose name I believe was Maria. Throughout his struggels with other women he would always come back to the gosple truth that all these other women would never compare to his Maria. It was as if he had found and then lost a level of completeness with Maria and continued a knowingly fruitless search to rediscover it.
Jared and I tried occationaly to speak of other places where completeness and fulfillment may be found. Bill would have none of it becasue to him, as Dan Brown has been pounding into our heads, the feminine was devine.
As Bill became more and more ill we would occationaly ask his permission to pray with him. He always graciously allowed us but would also remind us that it hadn't done much good last time. We prayed none-the-less for the pain to decrease, for it to be easier to breath and for Bill to find some activities, other than the relentless daydreaming about exotic honeymoons with nurses, with with to use his time. I don't know if the Kingdom ever broke in to that desheveled nursing home cell but we prayed that it might.
More recently Bill had become to weak to say more than a few words at a time. So instead of talking I read to Bill. Just before Christmas Jared and I had taken Bill on and escursion to buy some gifts and have some Ethiopian food (I had worried that is was a trial to see if a Honeymoon in Ethiopia might be a good next proposal). In Chapters he had bought a book for himself about Stampede wrestling using a depit card that hadn't been touched in 5 years. He did end up remembering the PIN number eventually. The clerk asked him if he has a Chapters card which he had but apperantly misplaced. When his name was looked up on the database his card had expired in 2001.
The Stampede wrestling book occupied our last few visits. They were tough but good. I read for a bit then prayed for a bit then left. I feel somewhat guilty now though. I hadn't seen Bill in a little more than a week although I had promised him I'd return sooner.
A man shouldn't die alone. In the Kingdom a man doesn't die alone. I guess the Kingdom isn't here yet.
Bill and I had been friends for about a year and a half. We met when Jared and I started to vollunteer at his nursing home; attempting to bring a bit of the Kingdom into that tomb. Things haven't always been smooth but I really did count Bill amoung my good friends. We would talk about literature and philosophy mostly, along with Hitler and Facist Germany. For reasons I never sorted out Bill was facinated with facists. Bill had been a grade school English teacher in his earlier years but fancied himself a schollar of Ivy Leauge credentials.
He also attempted to live the life of a Ivy Leauge playboy. He got himself mixed up in some awkward situations with the other residents and nurses at the home regarding promised engagement rings and romantics get-aways to the Holy Land or Paris. On one occation a nurse had taken him too seriously and had flirted back a little too aggressivly for even Bills comfort leading to a complaint to the Alberta protection of persons in care comittee.
But for all Bills misdirected affections he always had a soft spot in his heart for the wife of his second of two failed marriges; a mexican senora whose name I believe was Maria. Throughout his struggels with other women he would always come back to the gosple truth that all these other women would never compare to his Maria. It was as if he had found and then lost a level of completeness with Maria and continued a knowingly fruitless search to rediscover it.
Jared and I tried occationaly to speak of other places where completeness and fulfillment may be found. Bill would have none of it becasue to him, as Dan Brown has been pounding into our heads, the feminine was devine.
As Bill became more and more ill we would occationaly ask his permission to pray with him. He always graciously allowed us but would also remind us that it hadn't done much good last time. We prayed none-the-less for the pain to decrease, for it to be easier to breath and for Bill to find some activities, other than the relentless daydreaming about exotic honeymoons with nurses, with with to use his time. I don't know if the Kingdom ever broke in to that desheveled nursing home cell but we prayed that it might.
More recently Bill had become to weak to say more than a few words at a time. So instead of talking I read to Bill. Just before Christmas Jared and I had taken Bill on and escursion to buy some gifts and have some Ethiopian food (I had worried that is was a trial to see if a Honeymoon in Ethiopia might be a good next proposal). In Chapters he had bought a book for himself about Stampede wrestling using a depit card that hadn't been touched in 5 years. He did end up remembering the PIN number eventually. The clerk asked him if he has a Chapters card which he had but apperantly misplaced. When his name was looked up on the database his card had expired in 2001.
The Stampede wrestling book occupied our last few visits. They were tough but good. I read for a bit then prayed for a bit then left. I feel somewhat guilty now though. I hadn't seen Bill in a little more than a week although I had promised him I'd return sooner.
A man shouldn't die alone. In the Kingdom a man doesn't die alone. I guess the Kingdom isn't here yet.
posted by Luke at
12:15 PM
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