The Gospel Acording to Karen B.

Our friend Sandy died this week. I met her seven weeks ago when I admitted her to my hospital service for palliation of end stage pancreatic cancer. She had no family up here and had no place to go. Where does one go to die when she knows she has only a few days left? Somehow she came our way.

We fixed some things, physiologically, and balanced the pain meds as best we could, and watched a flower open up. I guess that can happen even in a desert; a little rain falls and the strength of the blossom lifts out of some deep place where it slept during all those dry years. It flows up in the swelling bud and opens, brightly colored and fragrant, an extravagant display of presence and power and persistence, like a sign to the universe that Life will not be dominated by adversity. That was Sandy. When she smiled it was like that.

Other times were not so good. Sandy was suffering through hypoxia and weakness and pain and the physical transformation of feminine beauty to something misshapen and foreign to self...these are very heavy hardships for the struggling soul. I gave her my best words during those moments, the analogies and examples and stories illustrating the sufficiency of a Father's love...she knew those things, but in those terrible moments did not feel those things. Words did not seem to mean much.

Toward the end, on one of those bad days, I was saying the words when Karen B. came in. Just to meet Sandy and visit and be kind to someone who was walking a terribly lonely path. Karen brought chocolate, and when the taste of that dissolved in Sandy's mouth it was like rain again, nourishing the dry places words can never reach. You could see this on Sandy's face. Karen brought lotion, and massaged Sandy's feet. Karen knew this was a good thing because that's what she likes.

Karen didn't have many words. Just a bag with lotion and chocolate and a heart like a raincloud, ready to pour itself out on a desert place. Which is what a desert wants. Karen was the rain, and in the desert rain changes everything.