"On Healing" January 2002

Posted on 1/7/2002
No trust in God after father's death
By Dan Gottlieb

Dear Dr. Dan: I recently lost my father to spinal cancer. I turned to God for help. I begged, pleaded and cried on bended knee for a miracle, but there was none. I am at a point in my life now where I am very bitter and angry. I feel betrayed by a God who says he loves us and wants to help us, but when we do turn to him it is "No" or it falls on deaf ears.

After someone has passed away from a terminal illness, people say, "It's a blessing." Just once it would be nice to hear someone say, "Praise God for curing them and for a miracle."

My father was a gentle, kind and wonderful man who was stripped of all his dignity. If God wanted him so badly why didn't he just take him, instead of degrading him? It seems the more I prayed for help the worse he got. I thought prayer was supposed to help your cause, not hurt it.

It will be a very long time before I get down on bended knee again and pray for help.

Dear reader: I am sorry about your loss. Your father sounds like he was a nice man and I would have wished for him an easier passage. You sound like you are in terrible pain, and I'm guessing that your pain is because you carry both loss and resentment. To lose a loved one can be a terribly lonely experience. But to have your faith shattered in the process must feel even lonelier.

I noticed that you did not say you had become an atheist - just that you would not pray for help. That tells me you feel betrayed and mistrustful and that your faith was shaken, but not your belief in a higher power or spirit.

Your faith was challenged because your expectations were not met. So I suggest you take a look at what God means to you. Some people believe in a God who is a type of attentive life guide with influence over the small details - if we get a cold or win a raffle. Some believe in a God who is critical and judgmental and holds us accountable for even the slightest misdeeds. Yet others believe in a God who is all accepting and loves us no matter what we do. And anyone who has watched sports on television, of course, knows that many athletes believe God pays very close attention to the outcomes of sporting events.

When expectations are not met in any relationship, trust is jeopardized. But sometimes the problem is in the expectations.

Over the course of my adult life, I have endured much adversity. At first I was resentful and scoffed at the notion of a higher power - I felt much as you do. One day while leaving the cemetery after my wife's funeral, I looked at the sky and said: "I just can't take any more pain." What I heard back still lives: "Sure you can. You just don't want to." That's when I realized that my God would not protect me from suffering. I also realized that my pain was just that: As much as it hurt, it was an emotion that could be endured.

What I ultimately came to believe is that when my faith had both strength and depth, I was at peace. And when I had faith, I had a sense of companionship. My God asks for faith and offers companionship. I know I will endure great suffering before I leave this earth. I only hope that when I do, my faith remains intact throughout.

Research shows that faith contributes to one's sense of well-being and one's ability to recover from adversity. People with strong faith in any type of higher power tend to be happier, more peaceful and recover from adversity more quickly.

But it is important to understand that faith is different from belief. Belief in a higher power is an intellectual position. Faith requires trust. We use the term "leap of faith" because faith requires giving up control to something that cannot be seen or measured. Faith also demands comfort with the idea that the important things in life are not in one's personal control. That's why faith requires humility.

By sad coincidence I find myself on a path similar to yours. My beloved father is losing his health and has already lost his precious independence. This once robust and passionate man spends his days in his apartment under constant nursing supervision. I watch as he slowly loses his strength, vision, mental clarity and enjoyment of life.

As I am sure yours did, my emotions range from frustration to fear to impotence to guilt. But underneath these emotions is what feels like an aching, cavernous hole in the center of my chest that has no words. Is my faith intact? I can tell you with a combination of trust and hope that although I will soon be an orphan, I will not be alone.

I wish you wisdom, peace and companionship in this New Year.

Posted on 1/21/2002
For father and son, a chance to reflect on a life well lived
By Dan Gottlieb

Four years ago, when the doctor told me my father had congestive heart failure, I began to write his eulogy in my mind. It started this way: "The nicest man I ever met . . ."

The problem was, I could never think of anything beyond those words. When my sister was diagnosed with a terminal illness, I had a great deal to say. When my mother passed away, there were plenty of words. But with my dad - only those few. They seemed to say everything there was to say about him.

As a young boy in the 1920s, my father lived in Alabama. During his time there he rode the bus, once giving up his seat to a black woman, who, he told me, "looked like she needed to sit down." He was 9 years old. He was kicked off the bus.

When my father graduated from college, he got a job as a student teacher. He had a student who was unruly, so he took him to the principal's office. The principal handed my father a strap and said: "Do what you need to do." My father did what he needed to do - he left the building and never returned to teaching. This is the niceness I was referring to in the eulogy.

That nice man died last Monday, age 88.

He was sitting in a chair in his living room in Atlantic City looking at the ocean, something he loved to do ever since moving to the city 75 years ago, at age 13. It was the right way to die - and for him, the right time. His health had been slipping over the last several months. His heart and kidneys were beginning to fail.

Six weeks ago, when the doctor told him he probably would not get better, I went to be by his side. After the initial sadness, I asked him to review his life. This is a man who, despite his gentleness, always considered himself a pessimist. He wouldn't wager on a sports game because he "knew" the team he wanted to win would lose.

Of course, his pessimism was understandable. For 20 years, he watched his son navigate life in a wheelchair. In the last five years, he buried his daughter and his wife. On more than one occasion he has told me he was "ready to leave this vale of tears." So when I asked him to review his life, I was not expecting much. After a few minutes of reflection, he said: "I think I would give my life a B." I was pleasantly surprised.

My father was a small man. He was small in stature (5-foot-6) and small in the mark he made in the world. He owned a small army-navy store in Pleasantville, N.J. He earned enough money to raise his family in a middle-class suburb and to send his children to college. He did not lead in any groups or organizations. All he did do was raise two children who were capable of great love and compassion. He lived and loved, married to a woman he adored for nearly 56 years, until her death. He left the world pretty much as he found it.

He had been an atheist, and generally didn't have much tolerance for religion, but here's what I've come to know: If there is a God, I'm sure my father led his life according to His or Her expectations. If God is love, then my father is as close to God as anyone I've met.

A couple of weeks ago, when his health deteriorated further, I went to his apartment to talk about hospice care. We discussed whether he wanted emergency medical attention - to be resuscitated - if he became seriously ill, or if he preferred we just help him be comfortable in his apartment by the ocean. It was a difficult conversation for both of us, and he ultimately chose comfort over medical intervention. Suddenly, he reflected: "You know that conversation we had a few weeks ago at the hospital? Well, I thought about it, and I think I would give this life an A."

Funny, how things change for both father and son. What I once saw in him as absence I now see as dedication to family. What I once saw as rigidity I now see as tenacity. What I once saw as lack of assertiveness and aggression I now see as kindness.

I spent a month with my father this summer. It was a vacation I had dreamed of for many years. So now, as we were both aging, I decided it should not be postponed any longer. I described in a column in August how we spent time together talking, laughing, and just looking at the ocean. I watched as he lived his life with grace and passion. I also watched as he sat in his easy chair and quietly dozed off. I tried to capture that picture in my mind, knowing that he would not be here much longer. As I wrote then, it was the best vacation I ever had.

He and I had our last visit the day before he died. It was a very windy day, and when I arrived at the apartment he was sitting in front of the window in the sunshine. I pulled my chair up next to him, and, after I rested my arm on his shoulder, I looked at the beach.

A strong wind was blowing the sand directly into the ocean. It seemed that if the wind continued, eventually all the sand would go into the sea. The beach was being wiped clean. All of the footprints and other markings that were there the day before were now smooth. As I watched the beach again gave birth to itself, I moved my hand to my father's chest, drawing him closer. Without looking up, he took my hand and kissed my left thumb and gently rubbed his cheek on it.

This is the only area on my hand where I have sensation. The last thing I can remember of my father was the feel of his face on my hand. In the first several days after his death, whenever someone asked if I needed anything, I began to cry, thinking: "Yes, I would just like to feel his face on my thumb one more time."

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