“We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
“We love to talk about eternal life all the time—until it involves my death.”
— Retired First Free Pastor Chuck Rife
Pat and Colleen Clinton had just painted their living room.
After several years of the room hosting a hospital bed for Colleen’s terminally ill mom, that hard season was over. The new paint symbolized a new season.
But something wasn’t right with Pat. As a pastor, he’d always had a gift for language. Now sometimes he’d struggle midway through a sentence, unable to grasp the right words.
“Do you think Dad has Alzheimer’s?” their daughter, Andrea, asked while visiting from Wisconsin.
As more people began to notice, a friend suggested Pat see a doctor. He did, in February 2009.
The news was shocking: glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. Stage four.
“I’d never heard of it before,” Colleen says.
Andrea went home with her mom and looked it up.
“Mom,” she said, “unless the Lord performs a miracle, Dad’s not going to make it. Because it’s bad.”
Soon a series of chemotherapy and radiation treatments was set in motion. Those bought some time, but the end was in sight.
Colleen remembers: “He told me one day, ‘I’m not going to live. I’m going to be going to heaven. And we’re going to make plans.’”
We spoke recently with Colleen Clinton and retired Pastor Chuck Rife, about dealing with death. Coleen lost her husband, Pat, 13 years ago. Today she serves as a deaconess and helps many others experiencing loss and grief. Chuck, though retired, still handles many of the funerals at First Free. In Part 1 last week, we focused on funerals and preparation. This week, the conversation turns to experiencing the death of a loved one, and coming to grips with our own earthly mortality in light of our faith.
What sort of plans did the two of you make, Colleen?
Colleen Clinton: We ended up having two years before he passed away, which was really a blessing. And that doesn’t happen for everybody. But Pat got all these ideas. He said, I want to go visit all the churches we served, and I want to go to Nepal, where (Pat’s youngest brother) Bob is.
And we did it!
But then right after that, it was in November (2010) that he got back. Then, they tried some other kind of chemo. And it wasn’t successful. So (the cancer) began to spread like wildfire and the doctor in Chicago said “He’ll probably pass in March.” And he did.
He pushed to go to funeral homes. To ask, “Where are we going to be buried?” We had lived all over the country. And to go all the way back to Minnesota didn’t seem very smart. So we picked our gravesite (at the Scandinavian Cemetery near Sinnissippi Park). And he had a sense of humor, which was wonderful. He laid down on the spot because they told us which way the body would lay. And he said, “Oh, I’ll be facing the golf course!”
Chuck Rife: Was that hard for you when he did that?
Colleen Clinton: It was in a way. And yet it lightened the load. Humor does that.
There were many blessings when we were in a bad spot. And he maintained a very positive attitude through the whole thing. He had a blood clot and some different happenings, but with glioblastoma, at least his type, he had no pain. That was such a blessing.
Chuck Rife: Was he cognizant up until the end?
Colleen Clinton: Well, he died on a Monday. And on Saturday, he was pretty garbled in how he talked, but he said to me, “I’m going.” So he knew.
What was that like for you?
Colleen Clinton: You know, at that point I was like, “I’m willing to let you go, honey.”
Chuck Rife: That’s also important. My sister came three times up to death. The first two times she revived. The third time, her son said to her, “Mother it’s OK. You can go.” He released her. And then she died.
That’s a really common thing, isn’t it?
Chuck Rife: Oh, absolutely. I could tell you about others in the church. The person was trying to live because of the spouse or the family. And when they release that person …
When someone is in Pat’s situation, what I see sometimes among Christians is, “Pray for a miracle. I’m not even going to consider the idea that I could die. I’m going to get a miracle.”
Colleen Clinton: That is not reality.
Yeah. But then if you say that, you’ll get, “Well, you lack faith.”
Chuck Rife: That’s awful. I even had a family once tell me at the hospital, “Don’t mention anything about death. Don’t mention anything in prayer about death.” And I thought, Why am I here?
I mean, you don’t want to dismiss the possibility that God could do a miracle, but …
Chuck Rife: Amen. Sometimes I just pray, “Lord, accomplish your purposes in this person’s life.” Rather than always praying for their healing. Or I say to God, “We want them to live, but your will be done.”
Colleen Clinton: You’ll be healed in heaven.
Chuck Rife: Amen. And that’s perfect.
You wonder sometimes, when we take an eternal view of this, what are we clinging to? I mean, certainly to loved ones. But we always say we long for heaven. Do we?
Chuck Rife: We love to talk about eternal life all the time—until it involves my death.
You know, for me, death is a doorway. You take your last breath here, and the next breath in the presence of Jesus. Why would I fear that?
Now, I always ask people if I’m there when they’re dying: “Do you have any concerns? Do you have any fears?” And sometimes they’ll look at me and I say, “Do you have a fear of standing before Jesus?”
With Christians, I rarely have people say, “Yes, I do.” If so, we talk about that. But for most people I say, “You’re fearing the process of death.” And they say yes, and I say, “I understand that.” There’s hospice that helps immensely in that process and I highly recommend it.
But know that God has hold of your hand—he’s going to walk you through this, and he’s going to bring you home. And (author) Erwin Lutzer says, and I love this, God sends a personal chariot to every one of his children to bring them home.
Colleen Clinton: Oh, I love that.
Do you think we fear pain more than death, as Christians?
Colleen Clinton: Probably.
Chuck Rife: Yeah. “How am I going to die?” I think about that.
My dad was a little bit like Pat in that we were joking minutes before he died. And I was alone with him when he died. He had had a massive heart attack. They couldn’t do anything for him.
So we got him out of intensive care and into a private room. And he prayed for each one of us children. He prayed for his grandchildren. Things that I didn’t even know my dad knew. … This was on a Saturday, and he said to us, “My service will be on Wednesday.”
He died on Sunday at 6 o’clock. I was alone with him. It was a beautiful, beautiful experience. But I understand that not everyone dies that way. I know that. Some people suffer and it’s horrible. Death is ugly. I’ve seen that.
What do you think of the idea of reconciliation before a person goes? How important is that?
Chuck Rife: Very important. Obviously, we can talk about salvation, but there are lot of people who profess salvation but aren’t in a right relationship with Jesus. I want to be in a good relationship with my Lord, and I encourage people to do likewise. It’s also good to be in a right relationship with family and friends. You can’t always accomplish that. But at least seek to reconcile. It will help avoid dealing with guilt afterwards.
Yes. It’s not an eternal issue, but it involves the quality of life for the people who are left. If things are left unresolved, they cause heartache afterwards.
Chuck Rife: I attended a men’s conference once, and I’ll never forget it. I’ve shared this many, times. The speaker talked about the fact of unresolved relationships that even if the person is dead, you can reconcile. Write a letter and confess your part in the broken relationship and offer forgiveness. We must then forgive ourselves. God has already forgiven us, if we’ve asked him, and we must choose to forgive the person and our own faults in the broken relationship. You can burn the letter afterward or keep it as an affirmation that the relationship is repaired.
There is forgiveness in Jesus Christ and there is healing in Jesus Christ. So just because they’re deceased doesn’t mean that you can’t find freedom from whatever occurred. Why live with issues of past broken relationships with people who are no longer with us?
There is a particularly 21st century American fear of death, I think, just because we’ve learned to prolong life so much.
Chuck Rife: We go to great lengths to avoid the word “death.” Olson (Funeral & Cremation Services) recently had a one-day seminar with a seminary professor speaking on death and the celebration service. He was excellent. He said, “Make sure in every service that you mention at least once if not a couple of times, the word death, because death is the final act of this life’s journey.
Colleen, what did you learn through what you went through with Pat that you now use as a deaconess?
Colleen Clinton: Oh, my goodness. Well, there’s a lot I learned. I guess the one thing is, it’s so nice that I’ve had the experience of losing my mate when I come alongside somebody who has had that experience. Because you understand what they’re going through. You know, some of the things I miss the most are the companionship that we had. We always talked at dinner about our day and what happened. And that I miss terribly, even still.
When you’re faced with a diagnosis that’s pretty hopeless, you might out of desperation start trying unproven remedies and treatments, stuff like that. Do you advise people about those sorts of decisions?
Chuck Rife: There’s a book that helped Ruth and me immensely in the preparation for the end of our lives. I’m not talking about the service. I’m talking about preparation for the end of life. It’s titled Between Life and Death: A Gospel-Centered Guide to End-of-Life Medical Care. It’s written by a trauma surgeon, Kathryn Butler. She is a strong Christian. She talks about every final medical procedure you can have at the end of life, and the pros and cons in each procedure.
At the end of the book, she gives her own end-of-life plan, which is very extensive. We used that book. Ruth and I sat down together and went through our end-of-life desires. The doctor concluded with something I think is very important: Don’t just put it on paper, because there’s always interpretation. Make sure you verbalize it to someone. So about four or five years ago, when our kids were home for Christmas, I called them to the dining room table and said, “We said we want to talk about our end-of-life desires.”
And our daughter did what I expected: “Oh, so you think you’re going to die?”
I said, “Honey, we are all dying.”
And we went through every page in our document. There are many decisions that everyone needs to make for themselves: life support, when and when not to; the pros and cons of dialysis. She covers everything, again, from a Christian perspective. Obviously, she doesn’t agree with or advocates euthanatizing. Neither do I believe in that, either. Biblically, it’s murder. It’s a very comprehensive book, written in layman’s terms. So it’s a fairly easy read. But again, we’ve got to talk about those things.
So if somebody reads this article and decides, I need to take some action, what’s the first step you would point them to?
Chuck Rife: Well, I would start with the book. Otherwise, I’d be more than happy to sit down and talk about some areas that ought to be considered. If they’re concerned about the (funeral) service, that’s much easier. You need to decide whether you’re going to intern the body or cremate, choose a funeral home, a cemetery, place for the service, the officiant, and a favorite Bible verse or passage along with several favorite songs.
Thanks to both of you for being so open about a difficult topic. I hope this can be helpful to our church family and beyond.
Chuck Rife: I’m often troubled as to how Christians look at death. God put within us a desire and will to live. And I think that’s wonderful and should be. But part of life is death. And you don’t understand life until you come to understand the reality of death and the life after death.
• Look back at Part 1: What makes a good funeral?
I remember the Sunday in 07 or 08 when Pat gave two examples in his message. He peeled a banana and ate it, and he laid on the floor and kicked his feet like an impetuous child. I appreciate Colleen’s attitude over the years; she could be better or bitter and she chose to be better.
I appreciate Jim’s article and Chuck and Colleen’s tremendous insight into death and dying.