Peace Offering

It’s been nearly a year now since I moved into our little valley of a dozen houses scattered over the wooded acres. As I met each of our neighbors the stories trickled out of the old man on the hill.

Jake was the Grinch of the valley, stealing the joy from those around him, the Scrooge who scowled and groused his way through life. Beside him stood the sweet spirited Grace, the long-suffering mate whose light shone in spite of the darkness surrounding her.

The pair had been married for nearly 65 years, an interminably long time to bear up under the weight of the world Jake had created for them, and yet, she stayed.

I had heard the stories of conflicts and insults dished out upon Jake’s neighbors before I ever met him so, when the day came, I naturally felt some trepidation. I had also recently heard that both Jake and Grace were terminally ill so I expected a frail couple, broken, softened, resigned to the life they’d been given.

But when Jake answered their door a ramrod straight man, stern, suspicious, and ready to meet any challenge stood before me. Though old and thin, he was up to the fight. Grace was still the sweet, gentle, smiling soul, kind to a fault. I determined to kill him with kindness, silently daring him not to smile. Faint traces, tiny cracks in his stony walls made me inwardly chuckle as we walked away. 

A few short months later news traveled around the valley that Jake and Grace were nearing the end of their battle with illness and the lifetime struggle between them. Their only surviving child, a daughter named Sarah, came to see them through it. (Jake and Grace’s two sons had already preceded them in death, leaving Sarah to carry the burden alone.) Hospice was called in to care for them; both, incredibly, were on the same downward trajectory in a race to death, leaving us all to wonder how a husband and wife could be dying at the same time, wondering who would be the first to go.

Collectively the neighborhood delivered meals and prayers, dropping off care and support quietly on the front porch, holding vigil in our homes. Jake died first, leaving Grace praying for a speedy death and release from her worldly cares and pain. She died three days later. 

Sarah began preparing a funeral for two, to grieve a double loss.

Though Jake had built several businesses in the 50-odd years of living in the area and seemed to be known by everyone, only a few friends and neighbors, along with the family came to pay their respects.

As we waited for the funeral to begin a slide show at the front of the chapel shown before us on screens. Grace and Jake as newlyweds, Grace and Jake as new parents, times together as the kids grew up, Grace and Jake working side by side in their business, then as retired Grace and Jake with their grandchildren. Occasionally, Jake would smile softly for the camera but often it was only the stoic Jake looking out through subdued eyes. Grace seemed to be a faded, ethereal figure in the background of Jake’s strong personality.

Then Sarah got up to give the eulogy and began with Jake. Jake whose presence had overshadowed his family in life, now overshadowed them in death.

“You never knew what you were going to get with Dad, the grizzly bear or the teddy bear,” she began.

We prepared ourselves for gut-level honesty. She alluded to many years of work to find some level acceptance. Years of living in Atlanta had turned this tiny, impeccably dressed woman into a steel magnolia and filled her voice with gritty determination.

Instead of slogging her way through the trials of life with Dad, she recounted his final days…

Jake and Grace were now confined to their beds in separate areas of the house, Sarah shuttling back and forth to comfort and care for them.

Sitting on her mom’s beside one day she asked the question that had been burning a hole through her heart for most of her life. “Mom, do you love Dad?” Grace only shrugged, “Mmm.”

Then, Sarah went to her father’s room, bolstering her courage once more. “Dad, do you love Mom?”

“Yes,” he replied. “But when I tell her I love her, she remains silent.”

A heart wounded over and over learns to wrap itself in insulating layers, like a butterfly in a cocoon. Soft, silent, noise-blocking layers to cradle and comfort, to gently tend to the wounds and encourage healing.

By now we in the audience are frozen in silence. We stare at the twin coffins, unable to breathe or cry. Sarah remains dry-eyed as she continues…

Surprisingly, Grace, as her name would imply, found the grace to expose her heart one last time, while the time remained, and asked to see Jake, a peace offering.

Sarah wheeled him into her mom’s room, then backed out quietly to let the couple find their words. When they finally called her back in they excitedly shared the plan they had hatched. Could they spend the night together in Grace’s room?

Time was now of the essence as it slipped quickly away. Jake and all his needs for rest were moved into Grace’s room, all his assorted pillows, all the items that reassured him on the nightstand.

When all was ready, Sarah carefully helped him into bed, cradling his head, lifting his legs for him, adjusting his pillows, pulling the covers over him, repeating the process for Grace.

At last she gazed upon her parents before closing the door, gaunt and cancer-ridden, facing each other in the bed, his hand on her hip, her hand on his arm. Rest in peace.

Their rest didn’t make it through the night as Jake’s pain roared back. He died the following day.

I marveled at Sarah’s composure as she recounted this emotionally charged, deeply personal account. The grace of that moment, that offering of peace, brought healing to Sarah in a way nothing before had been able to grant.

As the matching coffins were silently wheeled away, Sarah too, laid down her losses with her grief and finally wept. The war is ended, peace has been declared.

We who witnessed her bravery found renewed energy to love those near to us and tell them often, to sweep away the debris of daily living, making room only for what really matters in this life, and to strive to leave this world with as few regrets as possible.