Maggiejumps / Flick
Like Valerie Harper, We're All Terminal
Celebrities usually make the cover of People magazine for doing something silly or scandalous, but actress Valerie Harper's front-page story last week was much more serious. She announced she'd been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
Harper, best known as the wisecracking New Yorker Rhoda Morganstern on the 1970's sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show, went on to launch her goodbye media tour. On The Doctors, the 73-year-old explained why she elected to go public with her grim diagnosis: "Instead of waiting until after I'm dead to tell people the news, I thought this would be better for my fans to get a head's up." She explained that she wanted to use some of her remaining time on earth—possibly as little as three to six months—to encourage people to be less fearful of death.
Harper is winning praise for her courage. She hasn't spoken of any faith beyond the faith she has in the love of her family and fans. We would do well to pray for Ms. Harper and her family and to heed her unflinching message that each one of us is living with the same diagnosis she's been given. We're terminal, too.
We in the church talk a lot about eternal life, but don't always do a very good job helping one face death. We've all seen it happen. A woman from our church found out during her pregnancy that her baby had serious heart defects and little chance of survival. He died just minutes after birth. During her pregnancy, our fellow church members prayed fervently for a miracle. After her baby died, they brought casseroles. None of us, including the pastoral team, knew how to process the heartbreaking loss. I'm afraid too many of the wrong kinds of words, cheerful, over-spiritualized words, were said by some. Then, after the window of public mourning closed after a couple of weeks, no one said much of anything at all.
Sixth-generation funeral director and Christian blogger Caleb Wilde noted that sometimes our fear of death masquerading as vibrant faith short-circuits the way we believers process death:
Religious people tend to downplay tragedy with clichés like "It's God's will", "God meant it for good"(and)"We don't always understand God's mysterious plans." And in the same way, we use the powerful antidote of the afterlife to downplay our grief and pain during times of death: "At least you know he's in a better place", "You can be happy to know she's in the arms of Jesus." All this speaks to repression, delusion and the tendency to skip the first four stages of Kubler-Ross' grief model and go right to a faux form of "acceptance"… It's a "get out of pain for free" card that all too many play to the detriment of their personal growth... I distain this attempt to skip the labor of grief, the growth of grief and the personal evaluation that inevitably comes with death.
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Comments
Krista Lee
Jesus was born of a virgin and came into the world as human before dying and then coming back to life to ascend back to heaven. He lived here as a man until His 30's so He knows what we feel. He knows grief, anger, hurt, he knows the sting of death... How? He's already been there in our place so He can help us walk that same road when it's our time to die. Since He knows how we all feel, who better to help us sort out our feelings on the subject than a friend like Him. He's just waiting for us to ask for His help with a sincere heart--- And we may not get the answers we're wanting in the way we want them but in the long run they will be far better than we could ever dream!!
Krista Lee
I have also been praying for Valerie, for healing in mind, body, and soul. I pray that she finds Christ to be the one that she can call on at any time and He will hear her prayers. I pray that if she doesn't know Him, somehow, somewhere, some way, someone will come to her and tell her of the love He has for her and how she can accept Christ as her loving Lord and Savior. He is the answer regardless of the questions. I say this as much for myself as for Valerie because I know I fall short in so many ways. We all need to lift one another up, raise our spirits, and love one another as Christ Jesus loved us all, so much that he went willingly to the cross so that we could all have eternal life with Him. What greater love is there than that a man would lay down his own life for the ones he loves? How blessed we are to have that kind of man love us if we only ask Him to come live in our hearts and lives!!
Samuel Mahaffy
The deep awareness of our own mortality can be the beginning of a journey of appreciating and valuing our relationships every day. We easily become numb to the awareness that each day is a gift not to be wasted. Some of my richest days have been those I have spent with families witnessing the passing of their loved one. Both birth and death ought to happen in the cradle of a loving, caring community.
David Sanford
Thank you for this article, Michelle. Yes, the loss of an infant child is especially tough. I'm so grateful for www.babygrief.com, which offers nothing but comfort and solace and God's love to mothers (and fathers) who are grieving the death of their baby...
audrey ruth
Yes, we are all 24 hours closer to the end of the age or the end of our days (whichever comes first) than we were this time yesterday. I don't know if Valerie Harper knows the Lord, so ever since I read of her serious illness a couple of weeks ago, I've been praying that she will not leave this earth until she knows Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Natalie Hart
I love how the funeral director put it: offering those "comforting words" is like trying to skip the first few stages of grief. A good friend of mine recently died, and it was a real matter of discipline for me not to yell at people telling me my friend was "dancing with angels" or some such thing, "Yes, she is in a better place, but I'm still here and I'm really, really sad." It's far better to just say you're sorry. We're afraid of conversational lulls, though, so I've found that a good follow-up is to ask the person to tell you about their loved one who died. After all, if you are trying to be a friend to someone grieving, *you* should not try to be the star of the interaction.
Tim Fall
Michelle, you make me mindful of John Donne's meditation on death, and that each death touches each of us left living. Death comes to us all, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Do I know Valerie Harper? No more than anyone else who merely saw her on teh screen. But I know her well enough to have fond memories of what she has given us over the years. Her puckish statement "I thought this would be better for my fans to get a head's up" is a great example of her wit and wisdom. Blessings, Tim ( timfall.wordpress.com )
JANET W
This is a very timely article for me, as I just spoke at a Senior's Luncheon at a local church earlier this week about hospice. As I stood looking at the faces of close to a hundred older adults, many who entered the building supported by a cane or the arm of a spouse, the stark reality of the appropriateness of my topic really stood out. These weren't people who necessarily had a terminal diagnosis, but for many of them, they are in the twilight of their lives and death is something that they've likely pondered. Talking about death and dying was difficult, but needed. The reality is "None of us are getting out of here alive." So, how we handle the inevitability of death and dying is so important. The stages of grief (denial; anger; bargaining; depression; and, acceptance) are real both for the person with a terminal illness and their loved ones.
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