A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original review appears below. Kit Schindell is a psychiatric nurse in Vancouver, B.C., and Reviews editor of Channels.
Living with Dying. George Lea Harper, Jr. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992, 117 pp.
“How are you?” is one thing I don’t ask my best friend anymore. We agreed a few months ago that that would not be part of our conversation. “I can’t get away from it. Whenever someone approaches me, the first thing I’m asked is how I am feeling. Or I’ll get comments on my appearance. I’ll be told I look like a million dollars, or that I look weak and tired. When I look like a million dollars it’s probably because I’ve had eight litres of fluid removed from my body and two pints of blood pumped in. And if I look weak and tired, it’s because I am. And then the conversation is over. It’s as if I don’t count for anything but a health report.” So some days, if she wants to, she will phone to update me; some days her husband will phone. Other days the state of her health will float into our conversation naturally. At times it is not discussed at all. But she has someone she can be with, with whom she does not have to explain how she feels. “There is more to me than a person who is dying.”
Living with Dying is a book for a person who is living with dying. In one sense it is for all of us, as each of us will face death sooner or later. But some of us, like my friend, and like the author of this book, have a clearer indication of the span of their life. George Lea Harper and my friend are both hosting malignancies that threaten their lives. And their families also live with this same cancer, so that every schedule, every plan, every outing takes on new significance, new doubts. Their futures, too, are clouded and uncertain, and these family members will find comfort and heartening from this little book. But this is truly a book about living with dying. Harper speaks with realism and warmth. You’ll find no cliches or pat answers in this book. He tells us how much he wants to live, to see his sons graduate and marry, to continue in the loving partnership he shares with his wife. And he knows that he is fighting a losing battle. He does not write with resignation. He acknowledges that denial slips into the tapestry of his own life. But the author avoids sentimentalism and tears as much as possible. It is the very groundedness of this book that enhances its poignancy. He discusses the relevance and healing quality of “sick humour” and the joy to be found in a good laugh. He ponders his own funeral, he wonders at the fact that washing the car takes on new significance and meaning. He mourns the fact that times with friends and family are replaced by schedules and appointments and tests and red tape and bureaucratic hassles. He wonders at the millions that are spent in making modern medicine our idol of this generation. He reminds us all, “We are called to worship only God.”
Subjects that are often demurely omitted are included here. Harper discusses the great change in his role as a sexual partner and husband and the profound loss of an aspect of life he and his wife once enjoyed. He realizes that it is unlikely that he will see his sons into adulthood. “But I am still journeying with them for a while. I have insights, opportunities and challenges to share with them because of my illness. Can I make the most of these openings?” He comes to realize that the work he has done so far in raising these sons has not been in vain. He speaks of envying the boring structure of the predictable life his neighbours enjoy.
And most of all, Harper discusses where God is in all of this. Not for him are platitudes and proof texts. He recognizes and submits to a sovereign God. Yet here is a Christian man who has experienced the paralysis of anxiety. He has decisions to make about his treatment, decisions that may shorten or lengthen his life. He is hungered with spiritual needs, but preoccupied with physical needs. He is at times overwhelmed with his illness,. His wife’s life is pressured and lonely. He finds it tremendously difficult to keep on fighting when the prognosis is poor, and “life offers more of the same, or worse.” Harper says that his experience with illness has helped him to discover a dimension of faith he had not known before. “Faith can learn to say ‘It is finished,’ before we’ve reached what we thought and planned would be the end.” In the final analysis, “I trust not my own endeavor but God in Christ to bring me final peace.”
“In my experience and that of my family, living with dying is perhaps the greatest challenge of my cancer.”
Not all of us have the support and love of family members with fortitude and faith. These days many of us suffer alone. Harper speaks very lovingly of his wife and sons whose presence, and very lives, have sustained him and strengthened him. But he also speaks of the beauty of nature, of the gift of a new day and of the knowledge, that if we live or if we die, we are the Lord’s. This book should be found in every church library.