Readings: "my final farewell"

On early Monday afternoon January 10, my uncle and I spent almost an hour talking on one of our regular weekly telephone calls. Over the past several years we have established a habit of talking to each other every Monday morning. However, if something came up, like a medical appointment or some other scheduled appointment or unforeseen event, we would just keep calling each other until we made contact. Our unwritten and unspoken rule was: talk to each other at least once a week.

On Tuesday morning January 11, I received a call from my sister-in-law telling me that my ninety-seven year old uncle, our family patriarch, had been rushed to the hospital in critical condition after having a stroke. After several days in intensive care he began showing signs of a slow, but positive improvement. Although his speech was slurred and was experiencing moderate difficulty in swallowing, his doctor and my uncle’s children began having discussions about his rehab and nursing care.

On Thursday afternoon January 26, one of my cousins called me from our uncle’s bedside. He held the telephone up to our uncle’s ear allowing me to say, “ hello” and “I love you”, to which my uncle gave a barely audible and unintelligible response.

On the evening of Friday, January 27 my phone rang. When I picked the phone up, tapped accept and said, “hello”, I heard my uncle’s older son said, “Dad has taken a turn for the worst. If you want to see him you should come right away.”

At 6:00 o'clock the next morning, Saturday, January 28, my wife, my brother’s widow, and I were on the highway driving from Southern Maryland to Southwestern Pennsylvania to be with my uncle. I spent the entire day and early evening sitting and standing next to my uncle lying there in the hospice bed. I gentle rubbed and kissed his forehead throughout the day; talking and saying to him over and over again, “I love you.”

Before departing I once again stared longingly down at my uncle’s peaceful yet unresponsive face. I began gently rubbing and kissing his forehead before lowering my mouth to his left ear as I began softly bidding him my final farewell.

Today’s post and passages from “The Power of Promises” are in honor and of the man, other than my father and grandfather, who has for seventy-five of my conscious years been an inspiration and moral beacon in my life. Thank you Uncle Donald for being a part of my life. I will spend the remaining days of my life embracing fond memories and immeasurable love for my mother’s younger brother and my uncle—Donald Russell Miller!

“The Power of Promises” -Lewis Smedes

“What a marvelous thing a promise is! When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable: she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay. When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be. With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.”

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“The future of the human family rides the fragile fibers of a promise spoken. One thing assures us that the cosmos will not climax its arduous odyssey turning itself into a stinking garbage heap. Only one thing affirms that the human romance will have a happy ending, and that the earth will be populated one day by a redeemed family living in justice and shalom. The one thread by which everything hangs is a promise spoken and not forgotten.”

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“When I make a promise I declare that my future with people who depend on me is not predetermined by the mixed-up culture of my tender years.

I am not fated, I am not determined, I am not a lump of human dough whipped into shape by the contingent reinforcement and aversive conditioning of my past. I know as well as the next person that I cannot create my life de novo; I am well aware that much of what I am and what I do is a gift or a curse from my past. But when I make a promise to anyone I rise above all the conditioning that limits me.

No German shepherd ever promised to be there with me. No home computer ever promised to be a loyal help, meet for the contemporary householder. Only a person can make a promise. And when he does, he is most free.”

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“We can have a human community only if persons within are able to keep the thread of their identity amid all their life's passages. A person, in the long run, gets this identity from the promises he makes. We know someone as the same person today that he or she was yesterday by the promises that person made yesterday and keeps today.

Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them. But feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them. But the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them. But our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are.”

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