How can we get to Heaven if we cling to the Earth? Letting go of the rotten things is easy, we do it every time every time we take out the trash. Letting go of what we care about is harder, sometimes really difficult. The worst is when you have to actively push away what your care about, or kill what you love. I’ve had several examples come up lately.
November 11th was the six-month anniversary of the death of my last dog on May 11th, the third one in a year I had to put to sleep. Believing that every experience is put here for my character to grow, I looked for the meaning in the lesson prepared for me. Six months was enough time, I figured, to be distanced from the feeling of the moment, analyze the underlying reasons that this happened and glean understanding of I was supposed to learn from it. I knew that ending a dog’s suffering from a tumor was what I had to do, my obligation to the animal I called a friend. Duty done, what good came of that; how was I supposed to grow from it?
At the same time, my wife was in Arizona, having taken her mom to see her mom’s brother in the hospital. My wife’s uncle was in his 80’s in an irreversible coma, on life-support. His large family had been religious, dirt-poor farmers in 1920’s and 30’s Wyoming but most of them got college degrees, serving in WW2 and raising subfamilies of their own. Seven brothers and sisters gathered at the hospital from across the Western USA, to see him one last time and be around him when his wife turned off the respirator. My wife tried to beg off of this final duty, asking her mom to let her wait outside the hospital room. But her mother insisted she stay with the family to the end. I don’t know whether this was because Mom needed the support, or Uncle did, or my wife needed to learn the lesson I was trying to figure out; why do I have to kill what I love?
Although removing a disabled person’s food and water is an act of murder, the Catholic Church allows life-support machines to be turned off, as a moral act. But how can that be easy for the family? It isn’t easy. How can they do it, say goodbye to a younger brother you watched be born in a farmhouse 80 years ago? I whine about the difficulty of zapping a dog I’ve known for ten years and who has cancer but I didn’t even stay to watch the doctor give the shot. How much worse to watch a human being, a friend, die in a foxhole during a battle, right next to you? And how much worse to have to unplug your brother of 80 years yourself?
I mused on this as I sat in the pew, early for Mass, that Sunday. Behind the altar is a large plate-glass window with a view into the forest, and a large Pieta statue. The original Pieta was carved by Michelangelo and resides in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It captures a moment in time where the body of the dead Jesus is cradled by the mother who brought him into the world. Unlike a snapshot from the movie “The Passion of the Christ”, St. Mary doesn’t look accusatively at the audience or bear pain in the statue’s face. Instead, her focus is on her son and her countenance is serene. I looked to the Holy Mother for an answer, pathetically comparing myself with my dead dogs and my wife with her passed-away uncle. How shallow and self-centered I knew I was, when others manifested such greater character when faced with one hundred times the challenge I had.
Attempts to understand using my analysis and brain power had failed. I needed inspiration from above. There in the pew, understanding came to me and it came from someone far wiser than me. We all had to give up what we loved on Earth, for the greater good. Not just endure, not just suffer events happening to us, but actively give away what we cared about for the greater good. I cared more about my dogs’ suffering than I did about my own, so let them go. My wife’s family, out of love and closeness, had to let go of a precious brother. And St. Mary had to give up the most precious person in the whole world, the son she nursed, in order to save the world. When the other apostles abandoned him, his mother stayed with Jesus to the end, participating in the death she knew would unlock Heaven for humans.
One more thing: pushing people and animals you care about into the next world is an act of trust and faith. I had to push my dogs into a world where I could no longer feed them, shelter them, or protect them. I was attached to my role as protector and feeder, yet trusted that they would be fed and cared for in the next world. My wife’s family had so much confidence in God’s providence that they entrusted their beloved brother to His care. St. Mary knew, absolutely knew, that Jesus would be safe if he died. We all trust God enough to give Him our most valuable possessions, our families, for his eternal care. We demonstrate our faith by doing so. This 12-year-old understands it well: Logan, Sky Angel Cowboy
Being given this understanding gave me relief and let me unplug one attachment to the dogs. This was one last gift they (and my Creator) gave me, a lesson I’ll keep for the rest of my life. There will be other people and possessions I’ll have to give up, even push away, especially now that I’m well into middle age. Remembering how giving up these lives was the right thing for me, my wife, and the Blessed Mother to do will help the next giving go more easily.