Deaths and Dying

Sarita's mom called yesterday morning. Mom said that the husband of one of Sarita's cousins had just died.

Later in the morning, I received a phone call from one of the men with whom I served on the board of Caleb Project. Last July, Caleb Project had joined with ACMC (originally the Association of Church Missions Committees, more recently, Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) and the united organizations renamed themselves Initiative 360--findable online at TakeItGlobal.org.

Based on my understanding of what he told me, it sounds as if I-360, unless salvaged by a massively powerful organization, is in a death spiral and will close its doors at the end of this month.

We are in shock. We were staff members of the organization for two years. I was on the board for an additional six. Caleb Project began back in 1980. . . .

Then this morning (early!), I could not sleep. I am so many hundreds of emails behind, and there is so much work to do: I got up and noticed an email with the name of Alan (Al) Groves, one of the guys I knew--and, with his wife Libbie, with whom Sarita and I were close--while we were in seminary. Without saying it in so many words, the subject line made clear that Al had died.

I have just spent some 45 minutes reading about Al's final year. He died of cancer--metastasized melanoma.

I don't know what to say.

Our days are short. I realize it more and more.

My "project" of seeking to pass on my vision, my life's work: I sense I need to engage in it with ever-stronger resolve.

Fear: Declining mental powers

My brain seems to be working less and less well all the time. I'm more and more forgetful. I forget what I'm talking about in mid-sentence. I can't remember words. (I know the word is "out there"; I "just" can't remember what it is! . . .) And I'll be working on something, get distracted momentarily--an email will come in, or something--and I'll fail to remember what it was I was working on. . . . So I become less and less efficient, less and less able to accomplish anything . . . at least anything I have declared is of top importance.

I find myself--or, at least, I think of myself--as somnambulating [sleep-walking] through life. What was a curious and delightful diversion in college (I'd think "great and mighty thoughts" during almost every course lecture; my "notes" were all about my thoughts rather than about the professor's lecture) . . . --What was a curious and delightful diversion in college is now, it seems, becoming almost a prison. I find myself more and more unable to maintain focus on what another person is saying. I begin daydreaming during lectures, sermons, plays, musicals--any semi-passive listening opportunity--i.e., any opportunity in which I have no ability to interact with the presenter.

(New thought: Is that why I have always tended to be "the" person in a class who would "always" ask questions? . . . Maybe even back in high school, when I'd do that, I was attempting to overcome my penchant for daydreaming? Perhaps I have always been this way, but I just didn't realize it? Whether that's the case or not . . .)

I am becoming increasingly concerned that I might find myself literally "sleepwalking" through life. Sometimes I get the feeling that my brain is functioning about the way I have noticed it does--or the way it feels--when I find myself waking from an episode of attempted sleep-talking. (Ever had that happen to you? . . . I wake up from a dream in which I desperately want to say something, but I can't make my mouth form the words. It's as if my entire head has been stuffed with Novocaine or something. I can make my mouth move, and my vocal chords are moving, but at extreme slow-mo. And though I try to shout, and though my vocal chords are vibrating the way they should when I speak (and not when I whisper), I can't get much more sound volume from them than when I am whispering. . . . --And then I wake up!)

I don't want to "go gentle into that good night."