Janie B. Cheaney: When strength fails

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, commentator Janie B Cheaney on living with dignity, especially in the midst of incredible suffering.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: Novelist Lionel Shriver came to my attention years ago when she delivered a speech about “cultural appropriation” while wearing a sombrero. A little too in-your-face for my taste, but it took nerve.

Shriver’s nerves were the subject of a recent article for The Free Press, titled “I Lost Control of My Body.” After back surgery last summer, she developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, or GBS, a rare autoimmune disorder in which the body attacks its own nervous system. For months she was completely dependent on others for every bodily function. It was torture to type. She couldn’t sit up or even turn over in bed. Even today, after months of boring and exhausting therapy, she’s barely able to hobble with a cane. She may yet rejoin the ranks of the mobile, but it’s a hard road ahead with uncertain rewards.

Shriver has no use for subjecting to divine will. She writes, “There’s something passive and wussy about lying back and taking it, defeatedly making your peace with an abruptly wretched existence.” I’d like to introduce her to Joni Eareckson Tada, who has managed both immobility and frequent pain almost as long as Shriver has been alive. A less passive, wussy, and defeated soul would be hard to imagine. Still, could any functional person read Shriver’s article without an uncomfortable reminder of how vulnerable we all are?

The New York State Assembly recently passed a Medical Assistance in Dying Act, designed to help people in such conundrums make a so-called “dignified exit.” Dignified, as opposed to dependent on strangers to feed them, clothe them, and dispose of their bodily waste. I think of dignity often in connection with my husband, now approaching the final stages of Alzheimer’s Dementia. He can still walk, sit, stand, and feed himself—sometimes even with a fork—but is dependent on me for everything else. It’s a mercy that he could not have foreseen where he is now. But often, while changing pullups or undressing him for bed, I remind myself: This could be me someday.

Along the sea of Galilee after the resurrection the Lord told Peter in John 21, “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” Thus he predicted “by what kind of death [Peter] was to glorify God.” Not a dignified death, if tradition is true. Yet, by what Matthew Henry calls “the strange alchemy of Providence,” a glorious one.

Because Christ stretched out his own hands and let strangers take him where he dreaded to go. He knew what was coming when he prayed, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that your son may glorify you.” Glory began with ignominious death.

I kneel to towel off my husband’s legs after a shower and remember Jesus kneeling to wash his disciples’ feet. I am obliged to treat Doug with dignity, but God has a greater goal in mind for both of us. If humiliation is the seed of a glorious bloom, how can I complain?

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

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