Ever since his elementary school years J.Lo had always been in mortal fear of death. It all began when as a boy of 8 he had watched a movie that had an extended scene depicting an old woman haunted J.Lo’s imagination. It was not a matter of surprise for those close to him that his infantile fear had developed into a great horror of the Grim Reaper.
But then, since he wanted to become a priest, he knew that sooner or later, as a priest, he would have to face dying or dead people almost on a daily basis. So it was very much up to him to overcome his dread by the time of his ordination at latest, otherwise he would not be able to discharge one of his most important duties (the sacrament of extreme unction) as a priest. Having talked things over with his spiritual direction, he decided that during the summer breaks following his first few years in the seminary, he would “moonlight” as an orderly in a nearby hospital. This would obligate him to have many occasions to confront death, the death at one remove of some at least of his patients. Hopefully this would accustom him to facing death. He followed this plan to the letter and settled down to his job as an orderly.
Right at the start, J.Lo was assigned to- of all places – the word of the end – stage cancer patients. Most of these were males, middle aged and elderly. His job consisted of washing the patients, lifting them, giving them as rubdown, bed panning them, applying ointment to their bedsores, feeding them if necessary, changing their bed sheets and, in general, seeing to their comfort as far as possible. Because he put all of himself into his hospital work, almost all of his patients felt grateful for his services. He even joked around with them to cheer them up. But there was one patient who remained rather uncommunicative and aloof. His name was Siegfried. He seemed to have no relatives for none came around to visit; he had no friends in the hospital which rather intensified his painful condition. His lives cancer was most painful and J.Lo could do very little to alleviate this for the pain relievers Siegfried was taking seemed to have very little benefit to him. A most painful, slow death was in store for this patient. J. Lo would even see Siegfried grimacing in pain in his sleep. Because of this pitiable situation of Mr. S’ J. Lo made it a point to minister to this patient most attentively. He would even try to chat him up a bit every now and then.
Weeks passed and melted into months but still no deaths occurred in his ward, but everyday he anticipated that that would happen and that he J. Lo, would have to face what he dreaded so much. Well, he did not have to wait much longer.
One day, as he approached Siegfried’s bed, he saw that his patient’s formed seemed oddly still. As was his wont, he took his pulse. No pulse, and no warmth in the hand either, Taken back these signs, he sounded a medical alarm. About a dozen members of the staff responded and a roomful of medical equipment was soon emplaced to see if anything could still be done to revive the patient: defibrillation, oxygen masks and giant syringes were rushed to the spot. The docs pounded, punctured, and shocked the door victim. All in vain. Siegfried’s heart had been stilled for too long a time. The body was left for J. Lo to wash, cover with a sheet, and take down to the morgue.
And so, for the first time in his life, J. Lo was left alone with a dead body. Normally, he’d had been terrified at the sight of the cadaver lying near him on the bed. Maybe, he would even have run away, scream/sobbing in panicky fear. But not this time. That corpse was not just any corpse. It was the body of Siegfried, a person he had come to know, to commiserate with and in a sense to befriend. This last thought immediately calmed him. In this life, there just seems NOTHING WE CANNOT GET USED TO. J. Lo thought to himself, half-sadly, half-triumphantly. And he recalled St. Paul’s most moving words: “DEATH, WHERE IS THY STING? GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?” And J. Lo prayed: “LORD, HELP ME TO GIVE HIM THE LAST CARE I CAN GIVE HIM.” This imploration for God’s help gave J. Lo the strength to do his job. First, the washing of the body. For the next few minutes he busied himself in securing what he needed for the task ahead. While he was doing so, he felt a rush of anger, frustration and helplessness. He knew that all the means of modern medicine had been marshalled to revive poor Siegfield. Yet, they proved ineffectual. He really didn’t know why he was angry. His rancour was not directed at the doctors, nurses, or even the medical equipment. It was this feeling of bitterness that armed with a towelette and a basin of warm water, he finally came close to the corpse to start the ablution. That was when, out of his frustration and anger, a new insight into the meaning of death and dying came to him. For as he looked into the face of the late Siegfried, J. Lo saw what he had never seen before on that once-tortured face: an air of peace, quiet and contentment. And he realised how paradoxical this was on the face of one who had suffered so much. After all his hellish trials, Siegfried’s face was now truly in peace. “SO THEN,” J. Lo reflected, “DEATH PUTS AN END TO A PERSON’S AGONY, LONELINESS, CONFLICTS, TROUBLES.” This epiphany considerably altered his mood, of course. Now he could look with composure at death.
That moment marked quite a turning point, what the ancient Greeks called the PERIPETEIA of the story. As a result of this encounter with Siegfried’s death, he felt that he would be better able to cope with it in the future. For instance, when the time came for his parents and friends to die, when indeed he faced death himself, he felt he would be able to view it in a new, in the Paulinian light. He’d see it as a release. He would henceforth see Death as a way to true peace.
