Final Gifts

Tim has recently begun working as the spiritual care facilitator for Hospice of Holland. In order to better understand the dying process, Tim and I are reading a book together called, Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying – written by two hospice nurses. This book is about the gifts that dying people give to themselves and to those who are walking with them as they die. These gifts are often words that dying people speak. The book opens with the story of a woman. As she died, she kept saying, “It’s time to get in line.” Her husband thought that she just wasn’t making sense. But, this woman had been a traveler all her life – and she was getting ready to take a journey away from her husband. Using her words, the nurses of hospice were able to help her talk about her death and help her husband grieve.

Layton died 8 years ago tonight. Layton wasn’t able to give me any final gifts - no seemingly incoherent words that actually meant something deeper. He went from talking to me on the cell phone, thinking that in a matter of minutes he was going to be teaching high school band and choir, to being unconscious, never to speak again. Layton never said, “It’s time to get in line,” or whatever else he might of said knowing that he was going to die.

But he did give me - and his family - a gift – several gifts. Layton had just begun writing music in the years before he died. Almost every one of the songs that he wrote in the last couple of years of his life spoke of his eternal hope. I think that in some way, Layton was being prepared for his death – and I was being prepared for his death.

I will go through the deepest of pain to magnify my Lord.
I will suffer insults to my name to lift up his sacred word.
I deny myself and all that’s mine to be part of the master’s grand design.
- from I am Not Ashamed

The struggle is over; lay your head down.
Rest in your Father's arms.
Lay down your burden; put on your crown.
No longer will you fear harm.
- from Rest in Him

When darkness drifts around you
And your eyes close in sleep,
the Lord watches over every breath you take.
And when death comes near to bring you home,
You have no need to fear.
Rest assured, the Lord is with you.
- from Child of God

But I have trust in your unfailing love.
I rejoice in your saving power.
I will sing and dance and laugh forever.
You are with me in my darkest hour.
- from Psalm 13

Death is not unfamiliar to me and now, with Tim working among the dying and with me working in a congregation in which I'll commit parishioners to the earth and to the Father's arms, we will familiarize ourselves with death again. We will have many occasions to confront our mortality. Renate Wind, in her biography of Bonhoeffer writes that we need to "prepare at the same time for both life and death" so that we can "die because [we] have really learned to live" and so that we can "live because [we] have come to terms with [our] death" (177).

Tonight, as I wear my first wedding rings around my neck, and remember the final moments we had with Layton on this side of eternity, I am thanking God for how he keeps calling me to vocations and through challenges that weave together so tightly. And I am thanking God for the gift of Layton and the final gifts he gave.

Layton Reid De Vries

March 17, 1976 - December 11, 2000