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View From the Lake



Bert hadn't worn out his welcome, but pretty much everything else was failing.  He was 89.  At the hospital, they gave him a choice.  He chose to go home and die.  


But then he looked out at the lake, and decided not to be hasty.  


"All right!", Myrtle said, "but I'm going to need help!"  Myrtle was 85.  Home hospice care.  Round-the-clock nurses.  And the kids had to take turns helping her until Bert changed his mind.  


It was Suzanne's turn to help.  Bert was getting better, so it was just the two of them for a while:  Myrtle, and Suzanne.  And Bert, of course.  


But then Bert kind of shrank down into himself, and his head sagged.  "Oh, Bert!", Myrtle said. Suzanne said, "Oh, Dad!"  Bert didn't say anything.  He didn't move.


Myrtle, on one side of the Lazy Boy, held Bert's hand, and put her head down on his leg, saying goodbye.  Holding his other hand, Suzanne started to cry.  They took their time.  They knew it was time.  There was no need to do anything else.  


Myrtle raised her head.  "I'm going to get my drink!" she told Suzanne, and maybe Bert.  "This is going to be a while."


She came back with her drink, and took Bert's hand again.  Then her cell phone began to ring.  She only had two hands, and the cell phone was out or reach, anyway.  


"You can't just let it ring!" Suzanne protested.  "Dad is dying!  Make it stop ringing!"  Myrtle sighed, but let go of Bert's hand, carefully.  She didn't want to spill her drink.  She wasn't really good at operating her cell phone with one hand.  That took a while, too.  


Then the ladies from the parish came, with communion, just in time.  Someone had signed up for Bert.  "I'm Faith," the tall one said, "and this is Grace.  Grace will read the rite, and I'll help her."


Grace had trouble with the reading.  It was all about Lazarus, or somebody, who was a paraplegic, or something, and how Jesus had healed him, except that Grace  couldn't read paraplegic".  She tried to sound it out:  "Par-uh-pletic".  "Paraplegic", Faith said.  Grace tried to say, "paraplegic".  She came close.  


Then the same word came again.  "Pair-a-thetic", Grace tried.  "Paraplegic", Faith suggested.  Grace came close the second time, too.  And the third.  


"Oh, dear God!", Suzanne thought, "Just say, 'the P-word!'"  


On her own, Grace tried, again:  "parenthetic".  


"Anything!", Suzanne sighed.  "Prophylactic!  Anything!"


Then it was time to give Bert the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Faith picked up a wafer.  "You can't do that!", Myrtle said.  "It will kill him!"   


"It won't kill him!" Faith said, obviously offended.  "It is the body of our Lord Jesus Christ."


"It will kill him!" Myrtle responded.  "It will get into his lungs and Jesus Christ and the pneumonia will kill him!  He isn't ready to die, yet!  He wants to wait a while."


"Well," Faith said, "I have to have a big enough hunk to dunk it into the wine."


She broke off a little hunk of the body of Jesus Christ, and dunked it and her finger, and put it in Bert's mouth.  "This is the body of Our Lord Jesus Christ," she said.  


Faith believed that Myrtle should take communion, too.  It wouldn't hurt anything.  She took another wafer.  


"Oh, don't do that!" Myrtle protested, pointing at the rest of Bert's wafer.  I'll take that!  It's a shame to waste bread, even if it tastes like paper."  But then Bert interrupted them.  


"Why do they call him Jesus Christ?" Bert asked.  "Why does he have two names?"  


"Well, I don't know," Faith answered.  "It's his name."


Myrtle looked it up on Google.  "Jesus is his name," she said.  "Christ is his title.  It means 'anointed.'  Jesus Annointed."  


Bert tried again:  "What's a noint, for Christ's sake!"  He made it sound like they were invincibly ignorant.  They were.


"It's OK, Dad," Suzanne said, oddly relieved that he was back to normal.  "Do you feel better?"


"I need some of that berry juice!" Bert answered.  


"What berry juice?  We don't have any berry juice."  Myrtle was offended.  Then it occurred to her:  "Oh, you mean apple sauce!"


"Apple sauce," Bert agreed.  He could never remember "apple".  "I've got something stuck on my tongue," he said.  "I need some apple sauce."


"That's Jesus Christ!" Grace said.  


"Yeah," Bert agreed.  "Jesus Christ is stuck on my tongue.  I need some apple sauce to wash him down."


"Oh, Dad!" Suzanne said, after Bert had washed Jesus Christ down, "We were afraid you were going to die!"  


"Not yet!" Bert said, opening his eyes.  "Open the blinds!  I want to see the lake."  

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