Myrtle (obviously not her real name) is not an easy person to talk to. Wait, let me rephrase that. Myrtle is not an easy person to listen to. I say listen to, because she does all the talking. And what she talks about is never positive or in the least way uplifting. Her family life is one non stop drama that she needs to share with everyone in the office. It always sounds like someone in her family is sick or dieing and after hearing this same dreary droning day in and day out for the past year I’ve gotten to the point where I now turn off hearing her anymore. Oh I’ll politely nod my head, and mumble something about how hard it must be but then I hurriedly head back to the safety of my office.

But just now as I was in our break room getting another cup of coffee, I stopped and really listened to what she was telling me. “I just knew three people close to me were going to die this year. Dad’s back in the hospital and they found more small cell cancer. They told me last week that he had 5-6 months to live but now with this latest biopsy they are only giving him weeks. And my husband was back in the hospital this past Friday and checked himself out on Sunday.” My mumbled response to this was, “Checked himself out?”. Without getting into the entire explanation he apparently only has about 40% capacity in his heart and had gone in Friday with low blood pressure and his lungs full of fluid again. But once his blood pressure stabilized there was nothing the doctors could really do for him so he decided to come home.

At this point Myrtle just looked at me with a pleading in her eyes and said, “I just buried my best friend 2 weeks ago and now I’ve got to get ready to bury my Dad. And I know my husband isn’t going to make it through another year.”
What do you say to something like that? What could I say? Myrtle kept looking me straight in the eyes and I could see the tears starting to glaze over hers. There was such a look of hopeless desperation in those eyes. And in looking at them I could hear all of the unspoken words of pain that this woman has been living through for the past year. I could hear her silent response of anguished resolve that makes her come in to work each day and then go home each night and watch her loved ones slowly die. Because it’s all she can do.

For the first time I really heard what this woman had been saying for the past year and it hit me full force. I was severely chastened by my past attitude and calloused lack of concern. Now, I know there is nothing I can do to change what is inevitably going to happen. But, that thought left me also feeling like there there is nothing I can do, and the reality is that’s a lie. I can’t stop death, but I can very simply let a grieving person know that they are not alone. And isn’t that what we all want to know, that we’re not alone. I don’t know if Myrtle knows Christ, but I pray that He gives me the strength to be His light for this lady.

Peace,
Rong