Angel in a Rocker

The beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the appropriately hygienic neonatal intensive care room don’t seem to wake the new life inside. Beyond the plate glass that guards them, the oaken rockers look through the window, inordinately oversize sentinels of these infantly tiny beings in the warming beds of that room. Yet they also seem too small to hold the large angel that rocked one slowly to and fro that day. I could see him out there, beyond the glass. I couldn’t hear him over the din and bustle of where I was. Where we were.

She, who had just become she only a few days earlier, was securely tucked in her new womb of glass bed and soft blankets, dim radiant light from above. He, the angel unaware, has a tiny book open in his hand and he’s bowed into it as he rocks gently. The pocket Bibles the Gideons hand out to students and soldiers. I know he’s praying.

He’s praying for Lindsay. Lindsay who is one of the newest members of God’s family, Lindsay who is trying to get her bearings in this bewildering world of beeps and dings, trying to be comfortable with a head circumference as round as a 1 year old, trying to bear the leads and wires and IV’s which have invaded her tiny body. And David, this angel with the narrow chin, wide jowl, and thin beard, rocking his prayer, is praying for me as well.

My newborn is headed for brain surgery on this third day of her life. “What happens if we decide to not implant the shunt?,” I had naively asked the surgeon. He had pulled from his desk drawer a length of the thin plastic tubing which would run under the skin from my baby’s new brain down into her abdomen letting drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid to absorb harmlessly into her body.

“Her head will continue to expand as fluid builds up. She probably won’t survive very long without it,” he answered with the blunt voice that they must teach in medical school. Or maybe it just comes naturally to some. Confident, experienced, accurate, honest, decisive. I am so much more ready for the soothing pastoral voice of hope and possibility, peace and embrace. For me, though, the bluntness of this other angel made the decision all the more obvious.

Just three days before, another angel had glided he and I south on US 1 toward this new life that had just entered mine. Mom stayed where Lindsay had been born, the baby went by ambulance from there to the children’s hospital with the McDonald’s in the lobby, where she would have the best care the world could offer and where dad would get his fill of French fries and Diet Coke over the next few weeks. Mom and Linds were taken care of, but I still needed to get there. This angel, also bearded, also a fellow graduate sojourner, also a prayer-filled messenger from God had his car ready. Kevin prayed as we drove; Kevin with his Texas drawl and gentle manner. We talked, I’m sure, but God-only-knows about what.

The ancients have reminded us to not “neglect to show hospitality to strangers,” since by doing so many have “entertained angels unawares.” (Hebrews 13:2) Take Abraham, for one, in the noonday heat near those huge Mamre oaks who ran to greet the three who came his way without knowing for sure who they were or why they were there. “Hey, wait, I’ll get you some water,” he offers, and so angels are entertained unawares. (Genesis 18)

The doctor-angel was new to me, but the others of my angels were by no means strangers and they were most probably unaware that they were angels. No white robes or feathered wings or golden halos. No Glory-to-God-in-the-Highests or trumpet fanfares. Those two were just once-strangers who had become angelic-friends over the few years that led to this place in our lives, two of that greater band of angels hovering over us those days before, during, and after Lindsay’s birth.

At birth, I had no idea if she would survive. And since I hadn’t a clue, I had begun asking what would happen if she hadn’t. Where does my baby’s body go? How do parents go on living? From whence does my help come?

The angel behind the wheel on Day 1 reassured me that I need not be worried. On Day 2, she had her first seizure and the angel on the telephone from that hygienic room let me know that Linds—and I—were not alone. On Day 3, she now faced surgery where that blunt-message angel would invade her tiny body, come near her fragile brain, and pass through her newly developed insides, slipping into her abdomen that life prolonging thread. And the rocker angel’s presence reassured me that I need not be anxious.

To whom are you an angel? To whom are you the one who calms and reassures, who brings the good-enough-news to make a difference? And who are the angels in your life? Those who cry with you and help you lay your burden down?

Lindsay has led me to many angels in her now 29 years of days and she without words has entertained angels unawares who surround her with messages from beyond. Lindsay has angeled many too, with her gift of silent welcome and quiet determination, she who has no words has a spirit about her that shakes the world and changes lives.

So also do we angel the world around us unawares. To he who struggles with not knowing what’s around the corner. To she who wonders what to do with the new life in her arms. To they who are frustrated, shunned, shamed, abandoned. You are the angel in the rocker, the angel behind the wheel, the angel with sometimes blunt news, the angel who expects no hospitality, the angel that hovers with presence and assurance.

In the midst of the beeps and buzzes and dings and whirs of the world, receive your angels unawares, and be them as well.

© Copyright 2016 
James F. McIntire
All rights reserved.

This I Know

I never saw him in pajamas. In 23 years I can’t recall ever seeing my dad wearing pajamas. But he was in them the last time I saw him—the last time I saw him forever—through a slim break in the curtain as I walked past a window on my way to the hospital parking lot. He was walking too, back toward the room where I had visited with him that night before he died. An image now embedded in my being.

"This Is What I Know" by Judy Wise

I couldn’t muster the courage or nerve or confidence or strength or respect—I’m not sure how to name it—to see his lifeless body the next day on the slab in our trusted funeral director friend’s basement. My cousin in “the business” identified the lifeless body for us—for me I suppose. My only regret in all my years is that I never saw my dad after that night in his pajamas.

He was okay when I was with him that night. I say he was “okay” but maybe he was just content. Knowing peace, feeling forgiven, confident in the decision—just a few ways that I’ve reconciled that ease I saw in him that night in January. The doctor had recommended that dad go to an inpatient program at a clinic where he could receive therapy and more attentive attention than was possible in this place where he had deposited himself, the place which required the pajamas for decorum. But he couldn’t last.

I guess he would have to have worn them at the clinic, too, those pajamas. I don’t know where he got them. Mom, I suppose.

Dad slept in his tightey whiteys by the time I was an adult, boxers I remember from when I was a kid. And whenever I happened to see him hop on his one leg to the bathroom next to their bedroom in our tiny modified Cape Cod he was in those shorts and not pajamas. “Modified Cape Cod”—mom chuckled when I named it that so many years later. It was basically just a summer cottage turned year-round-home when they bought it at the end of WWII, that world of violence which had taken away his leg. Had taken away more of him than I ever knew.

I loved him and he loved me—I’m certain of that more than I’m certain of anything. Yet I never knew that this loving and kind and strong and generous man felt hollow and inadequate and partial and burdened deep down in his soul.

You can’t explain away a suicide by rationalizing it. You just can’t. It’s not a split-second decision, I know that. It’s not about cowardice because this was the most courageous man I’ve known. It’s not simply about depression and anxiety because they are temporary, if painful, conditions that so many people cope with day to day. I’ve tried to figure it out for more than 30 years now—the why, primarily—yet there are no acceptable answers any more than there are sufficient questions about that life-changing moment.

“You do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (James 4:14)

I’ve been wrestling with that these past three decades. Is it true? Did Jesus’ sudden and traumatic death impact his brother James in such a way that he wrestled with the finality of it in the same way? Your beloved ripped away from you without you being able to do anything about it, the ethereality yet finality of it all. But did Jesus’ brother know something that I haven’t been able to figure out? Is life truly only “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes”?

It’s not, of course. I suppose I knew that, know that. I suppose my dad knew that as well.

But then again James, like so many of us, slips into religiosity in his grief. “You ought to say, if God is willing we will live and do this or that.” As much as I know that life is more than a mist that appears and then vanishes, I also know that my dad’s death was not dependent on God’s willingness.

He was a faithful follower, a man of God, a man who taught me more of faithful living than I can ever put into words or action. He was, is, and always will be my dad, the gold standard by which I measure my own fatherhood and all men I encounter. He was and is more than “a mist that appears for a little while,” more than simply a glimpse through a curtain of a guy in his pajamas.

That morning he sat on his bed twisting the trash bags from the drawer of the nightstand next to him. No one thought twice about it. A nurse thought maybe he was working on the needlepoint project that he had with him, busyness that calmed his anxieties. But this was no craft project, this twisted rope that he set about to use.

He knew what he was doing. It’s not an impulsive move. It was not a whim. He twisted those bags with intentionality and decision. He rolled up the left leg of those pajama pants to slip on his artificial leg, he stood and walked that hall toward the shower room. It was deliberate. It was determined. He had to turn the doorknob and lock it behind him. He had to tie the knot over the shower head.

When did he decide? Did he know when I talked to him that night before? When did he know that he could no longer bear the pain, the pain that surged through his soul like so many others have known in their post trauma days—months—years—decades. Did he know when he checked into that sham of a hospital that lost him?

Did the universe know as he bobbed unconscious in the warm water of WWII's South Pacific 40 years before, sucked through a tear in the seaplane’s hull, his leg ripped beyond repair? Did the fates know as obcw rescued he lay in the bed of the sinking plane as morphine was jabbed into his pained body, morphine withheld just before the third dose would have brought him final sleep? As he lay in a bed in a Navy hospital in Australia hearing his dad’s voice calling to him from just outside the window, a voice that was 10,000 miles away in Appalachia? 

His life didn’t vanish then before it had reached 21 years, it was more than a mist then and more than a mist now.

I’ll never know what he knew, when he knew, the pain that draws away the desire from our living of life. What I’m left with is the doubt, the guilt, the despair, the emptiness in my own soul.

“May God forgive me for what I am about to do.” His final words of release—written, prayed, and granted. He is forgiven. This I know more than anything I know.

© Copyright 2016

James F. McIntire

All rights reserved. 

Just Love Her

A Service of Death and Resurrection for

Grace S. McIntire

February 16, 2016

A meditation offered by The Rev. James F. McIntire

John 14, selected verses

[Jesus said] “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In God’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place

where I am going.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask God, and God will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees nor knows. You know this Spirit, because it abides with you, and will be in you.

 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 

 “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom God will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” 

  

Ð

I sat at mom’s kitchen table one afternoon near the end of April 1988. My daughter Lindsay had been born on the 19^th with some serious medical issues which we were learning would cause physical and intellectual disabilities. She was still at Children’s Hospital though we anticipated bringing her home soon. I remember sitting at that kitchen table feeling a sense of confusion mixed with anxiety. What would this all mean for me, for the family, for Tim who was not yet 4 years old? Was I equipped to be a father of a child with severe disabilities? Is anybody? What were we going to do? I wasn’t panicky or scared – just uncertain and unsettled.

Mom’s eyes, dampened with tears, looked straight at me, “Just take her home and love her.”

Anybody who knew mom knew that that statement was, if anything was, the foundation for her life. “Just take her home and love her.”

I can only recall one time when that statement wasn’t true. I was still living at home, probably during my college years, when one winter day brought lots of snow. By nightfall, dad announced that it looked so beautiful outside that he wanted to take a walk – did we want to go? “No thanks,” I said since I was warm and comfortably stretched out on the floor watching TV. Mom didn’t want to go out in the cold either so dad went for a solo walk. Maybe 30 minutes later, the door opened and dad said, “Look what I found!” and a huge, grey and white shaggy sheep dog covered in icicles and clumps of snow came bounding through the middle of the dining room and living room, smelling like a soaking wet wool rug.

“What the …?” I yelled as laughter blurted out of me and dad at the same time.

“He was just wandering around out there. He’s cold and probably hungry. We should keep him.”

“Johnny … get … that … dog … out of here!”

“But can’t we …?”

“Out!”

Dad lost that battle that night so back out into the tundra that old dog went – probably just ran home to wherever he had escaped from. Mom wasn’t saying, “Just take him home and love him” that night. Nope. And Johnny knew it and made the right decision.

But mostly that’s how she lived. And maybe why she lived so long. She knew how to love and how to offer that gift to everyone around her.

“Love one another,” Jesus told his friends while he was with them for one of the last times before his death. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15) He had just offered them words to calm them, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. … Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” And now he was telling them to love.

Loving one another can most definitely bring about fear and anxiety. It means giving up hatred, it means surrendering those grudges and judgments from deep within us, it means living differently than what the world expects of you. Mom never showed that fear or anxiety. She opened her heart and let all of us in. And if we were paying attention we learned how to do it as well.

I would always ask mom, especially when my brother and sister were around and there were strangers nearby, “Hey Mom, who’s your favorite? C’mon, you know. Tell us, who’s your favorite?” She’d chuckle and then laugh at the reaction of those around us. I asked her again just a few weeks ago. Mitch and I were with her in the physical therapy room and she was in good spirits, trying to do what the therapists wanted from her.

“Mom, who’s your favorite? Tell ‘em. Everybody knows. Tell these ladies.”

Know what she did? She stuck her tongue out at me.

I think she learned that from her little brother, my Uncle Jack. He who called her, “Old Bat,” had a tongue that could reach all the way out to touch his nose. And he would stick out that tongue to his sister whenever they were together. I can’t tell you how many pictures there are of mom sticking out her tongue at someone. I got her to show the nurses one day and another time, when a doctor was looking in her mouth he said, “Stick out your tongue” so she did it like she usually did – not as if you’re saying “ahhhh” but full-on sticking it out at him.

Anyway … “who’s your favorite?” She always got a kick out of it.

It has just recently occurred to me that any child mom met, any child that spent time with this amazing woman, any child in her presence thought that they were the favorite. Mom had the gift of making you feel as if you are the most important person alive. Any child who spent time with Grandmom, Aunt Gracie, Mrs. Mac, or however you knew her, felt like they were getting the best of the time she had available. “You are the favorite,” she would let you think.

Think about it. Recall a moment when you were the focus of this amazing lady. Who here has had that experience? You are her favorite.

Mom had no problem making friends. Even over these past few difficult months, mom pulled into her circle of friends the nurses and therapists, the aides and housekeepers, the doctors and social workers. These people cried when they learned of mom’s death. These are people who deal regularly with the reality of the aging process and with loss and grief yet when I went to see them on Wednesday afternoon just to say thanks, the tears were sincere and the caring words of love and respect were clear.

Wesley Enhanced Living in Doylestown has experienced Grace McIntire – and it will never be the same again.

And I suspect everyone in this room can say the same. Your life was never the same once you connected with this 5’1” giant of a person. Maybe you’ve known her since birth and you’ve never lived life without her – this will be the most difficult part for me going forward from today. Maybe you’ve known her since her school years – like the high school friends who continue to meet for lunch each month, a time mom would enjoy so much. Maybe she helped raise you into adulthood – like so many of the young children she provided childcare for or so many of our friends who we dragged home to the tiny house in Croydon. Or maybe you’ve just known her a few years and had hoped for more time with her. Our lives were shaped and formed by Grace whose life was lived through God’s grace.

Lacey gave me a card that I have framed and look at everyday which holds an African proverb: “I am because you are.” I can say with a grateful heart and with a loving prayer, I know that I am because mom was.

Jesus who gathered his friends around him as he knew they would be at a loss when he left them, knew the importance of being together and the value of shared love. Mom taught me who that Jesus was. Mom taught me the songs of our faith. Mom taught me the lessons of justice that shape me even to this moment. Mom taught me how to love and to live. Mom taught me how to be a parent and grandparent. Mom taught me the importance of living fully and of the abundant life God promises us. 

Of the many sayings mom shared over her years, the one we all probably heard as she grew older and outlived her siblings and my dad’s siblings was, “Well, I guess the good Lord just isn’t ready for me yet.” On Tuesday night when I sat with her for the last time, I whispered those words into her ear. “Mom, you’ve always told us the good Lord isn’t ready for you yet. Mom, God’s ready now.”  

As I was driving home that evening it suddenly occurred to me, “I’m not sure God knows what’s coming!”

Mom left us a few notes to help us through this moment that we all knew was inevitable. The one that will stay with me the most is this that she wrote in 1993:

    To all my family,

  When I leave this good earth and if anything drastic happens to me, I have one request.

  Everyone take whatever they want and dispose of what is left.

  Another request is that I would like all to get together often as a family.

              I love you all.

                          Mom

Not only does this mean that I have to continue to get together with my brother and sister – sheesh – it also leaves me with a reminder that the things we have is not as important as who we have around us. “Take whatever you want and dispose of what is left” but make sure you “all get together often.

Mom leaves us with those words. “Take whatever you want … but all get together often.”

“Peace I leave with you. Do not be afraid. Love one another.” Jesus said it. Mom lived it. We need to carry it forward from this day.

Thanks be to God for this graceful, grace-filled, abundantly graced woman – Grace Southwell Hallman McIntire.

Amen.

© Copyright, James F. McIntire 2016

Grace S. (Hallman) McIntire, died Ash Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016.

Born Sept. 11, 1924, she was the daughter of George and Miriam (Achuff) Hallman and was raised in the Tacony neighborhood of Philadelphia with her eight siblings, graduating from Frankford High School in 1941.

In 1946, she married the late John F. McIntire who she met while both worked at Henry Disston & Sons Saw Works in Tacony. They settled in Croydon, where she lived for the next 70 years.

Grace was an active Cub Scout and Girl Scout leader for many years in Bucks County and Philadelphia, was involved with parent groups at Mary W. Devine Elementary School and Delhaas High School. She was a committed and active member of Tacony United Methodist Church from birth until 1999 when it closed and she joined Neshamony United Methodist Church in Hulmeville, where she was church secretary for 23 years (1988 to 2011).

Grace is survived by her three children, John Mitchell (Nancy) of Wrightstown, Patricia Ann of Croydon, and Rev. James Fred (Rev. Lydia Muñoz) of Drexel Hill, Pa. She was grandmother of 11 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, and beloved aunt to numerous nieces and nephews.

A Service of Death and Resurrection will be held at Neshamony United Methodist Church, 325 Main Street, Hulmeville, 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16, where visitors may call at 10 a.m. Interment will be held at Sunset Memorial Park, Somerton, Pa.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to 'Lindsay's Gift,' a family fund providing accessibility grants to churches, c/o Rev. James F. McIntire, 200 Treaty Rd., Drexel Hill, PA 19026,www.gofundme.com/LindsaysGift