Thoughts On My Summons… A Retired Catholic Physician Contemplates Death
By JAMES ASHER, D.O.
Part 2
In the late summer of 2020, after receiving a full dose of radiation and more chemotherapy in April, it became apparent that I was going to lose the battle against pancreatic cancer. This battle began in November of 2017 with a Whipple surgery followed by chemotherapy. At first I did really well, and far better than most. People congratulated me on “surviving” and on the marvelous way I was handling my diagnosis. It seems everyone knows about the lethality of pancreatic cancer.
In the back of my mind, there remained the grim reality of my extreme — and temporary — good fortune. It would not last, that much I knew. I tried to be grateful for the gift of every new day. It came therefore, as no surprise when the lab numbers began to indicate more cancer growth in spite of all the efforts to overcome it.
In November I began a course of chemotherapy which was projected to prolong but not save my life. It would stop when it was no longer effective or otherwise beneficial. The chemotherapy brought on serious lethargy and apathy — asthenia — and a change in my physical appearance. I went from a nice-looking, grey-headed, older gentleman (if I may say so), to a fuzzy, gaunt, bald-headed old man. One ponders one’s appearance when finally laid out, if there will even be any attendees at the funeral to look down on me in the box.
The good news is that every third week I get a respite from the chemotherapy and am able to be productive and get some work out. Perhaps that will make the asthenia worth it.
Suffering
I once read a concise history of the human race offered by the Persian Scholars, five of whom apparently shaped the Islamic world: They were born, they suffered, they died.
From Psalm 90 comes much the same sentiment, but with God and His wrath added into the mix:
Lord, you have been our refuge
through all generations…
A thousand years in your eyes
are merely a day gone by,
Before a watch passes in the night, . . .
Truly we are consumed by your anger,
filled with terror by your wrath.
You have kept our faults before you,
our hidden sins in the light of your face.
Our life ebbs away under your wrath;
our years end like a sigh.
Seventy is the sum of our years,
or eighty, if we are strong;
Most of them are toil and sorrow;
they pass quickly, and we are gone . . .
Teach us to count our days aright,
that we may gain wisdom of heart.
Prosper the work of our hands!
We might get 70 years out of this life, or 80 if we are strong — and I just entered my 80th year, thank you Lord — yet to God, even a thousand years are no more than a “…a day gone by… before a watch passes in the night…” We are consumed by God’s anger, filled with terror by His wrath, our hidden sins kept in the light of His face.
It seems many of us react to the news of impending suffering with, “What did I do to deserve such punishment?” as if in a belief that we have done something bad and now we’re going to get from God what’s coming to us. Yet we are unable to think of anything we’ve done so bad as to deserve this.
But unavoidable suffering is properly understood as a gift, not a punishment. It is God wanting our closer attention to Him, not a vindictive wrath coming down upon us. The suffering is to teach us to…count our days aright that we may gain wisdom of heart. Our natural reaction is to hope God won’t to be too generous in this regard.
Mother Angelica in one of her lighter moments on EWTN joked about redemptive suffering and having a root canal. I believe she expressed how she did not feel so inclined to desire suffering under those circumstances. Fortunately for many, modern dentistry has removed the scourge of agonizing toothache. But souls do offer to suffer, even victim souls who put their mental and physical suffering at the disposal of Jesus for the rest of suffering humanity. And people regularly choose painful lucidity over zombie-like, drug-induced numbness.
Redemptive Suffering
After the Whipple in November of 2017 and on my way with chemotherapy, I was well enough recovered in May to attend a Catholic Medical Association of Phoenix meeting. A colleague and fellow family practitioner was there. She also has a potentially lethal cancer and was diagnosed sometime before I was. Like myself, she had been through the gamut including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
“Pain scares me,” I confessed to her, “yet I feel I should be opening to redemptive suffering. How do you deal with that?”
“Take what they offer you,” my colleague reassured, “because regardless, you will suffer.” That is, there is suffering that will be inescapable and the question is, what to do with that suffering. Like the Spartan soldiers who must march through water regardless of whether it is warm or cold, like the lonesome valley we each must face and walk by ourselves, there is no alternative. Wanting or liking the experience is optional.
This is where redemptive suffering gets its opening. Only in Christianity are we able to make our suffering count for something, as we join it to Christ’s suffering in His Passion and Death.
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24).
Where suffering is avoidable, we tend to avoid it — gratefully taking what is offered. Those who choose additional suffering I believe are receiving a special vocation to do so. I don’t feel eager about wanting to suffer, yet when I did offer it up and it was revealed to me what my redemptive suffering was to be mostly about, I embraced it with a new enthusiasm — really a different spirit — because I want very much the salvation of those put before me.
This revelation, incidentally, came in a flash, not the result of long hours of meditation or prayer. Strangely, it was not my children. When I offered, I immediately received an answer I could embrace with gratitude.
The Agony
Most of the agony formerly associated with cancer is now thankfully gone due to modern medical capabilities, but there are still things like listlessness, fatigue, weakness, social isolation, increasing intolerance to various kinds of food, bowel irregularities, change in one’s physical appearance and otherwise wasting away, with other deficits and losses. These can be offered up.
And it’s easy for me to talk just now because I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow and I’m not in any pain. But I must keep Matt. 6:34 it in mind, “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”
“How much longer do you think I have?” I asked my radiation oncologist. Trying to be kind, I’m sure, she answered “Probably less than a year,” which is a nice answer sounding more like “a year,” than like something substantially less than a year. I find myself really curious to know what I’m in for. And yet, what if the news caused me upset — fear, anxiety, discouragement, whatever. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Meanwhile, I must enter more deeply into what has been given to me up to now. That is sufficient.
St. Joseph be with me to guard against the foe. Mother Mary take me by the hand. St. Michael Archangel defend me in the battle.
- + + (Editor’s Note: Dr. James Asher is a retired family physician. His practice experience has included family practice, emergency medicine, prison, military, and the Indian Health Service. He and his wife live in Phoenix where they are members of the Cathedral Parish of Saints Simon and Jude. They are parents of seven adult children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and vice president of the Catholic Medical Association of Phoenix.
(He has been an occasional contributor to The Wanderer. The first part of his “Summons” article appeared in The Wanderer dated December 10, 2020. He is completing the book Searching for a Few Good Men, intended as a complement to mentors working with young men, and seeking assistance with publication. He can be reached at: Grampa6101@gmail.com.)
