Column: Christian faith readied my father and grandfather for the end of life

I sat at the edge of my grandfather’s bed in a San Diego hospital and looked into his eyes.

I detected no apprehension.

I could sense the gravity of the moment. Grandpa was facing a surgery that could end his life. The odds of success were long.

“Are you ready to go, Grandpa, if God calls you?” I asked, somewhat tentatively. It was an indelicate question, I know, but I felt compelled to ask. Two of his four sons stood at the foot of his bed: my dad and one of my uncles.

Grandpa seemed not to take umbrage with my impudence.

Being a retired pastor and former military chaplain, I was sure he was prepared for any eventuality. Death to him held no particular dread.

I shared Granddad’s Christian faith, and was certain he understood the reason for my inquiry.

“Well, I still have some things I’d like to accomplish,” he began, “but I’m ready to go if God wills it. I’m at peace. I’ve lived a long life.”

God willed it. Grandpa died the next day at 84.

I admit to being slightly surprised at his comment about having things yet to accomplish. In that season of my life, I assumed that an 84-year-old is beyond bucket-list goals and pretty much marking time.

I was wrong.

I’m now certain Granddad had things he wished to do … like volunteer at his church, visit shut-ins and hold great grandbabies on his lap. All worthy aspirations.

Twenty-two years later I sat at my Dad’s bedside under similar circumstances. Unlike Grandpa, Dad had slipped into a coma.

He’d welcomed me to his bedside the evening before – after having been silent for many days – with, “Hello Jim, pull up a chair.”

I was shocked. But now he was mute. The end was near.

My brother, Bill, and I sat and read Scriptures aloud, offered prayers and talked with each other and to Dad (though he didn’t respond).

Bill and I were aware of studies that suggest comatose persons may actually be able to hear discussions going on about them.

We gave Dad permission to depart. He’d been in hospice care for some time and had stopped eating on his own. I was certain he was ready to go.

Dad too was 84.

I was in my early 40s when Granddad died, and in my early 60s when Dad passed. Now, though more than a decade shy of 84, I’m fast approaching the foothills that Dad and Granddad navigated whilst spying the soaring heights of the eternal Alps beyond.

British journalist, author and Christian apologist Malcolm Muggeridge, who lived into his late 80s, said somewhat restlessly during his final years that he looked forward — “very keenly” — to dying and experiencing eternity.

In fact, he made no bones about it.

But Muggeridge also continued to work at his craft, writing and speaking.

“I am old,” he candidly acknowledged, “and in at most a decade or so, will be dead. In earlier years I should doubtless have expressed things differently. Now the prospect of death overshadows all others.”

But he wasn’t morbidly fixated.

“I am like a man on a sea voyage nearing his destination,” he explained with jaw-dropping candor. “When I embarked I worried about having a cabin with a porthole, whether I should be asked to sit at the captain’s table, who were the more attractive and important passengers. All such considerations become pointless when I shall so soon be disembarking.”

Things change as we approach the waters of the continental shelf. Things important – even essential – at age 44 have little relevance at 84.

St. Mugg, as admirers and associates affectionately labeled him, said all he wanted from others late in life was love. They had nothing he coveted.

Muggeridge reached the end of his journey 27 years ago. My dad and granddad followed the same route. That’s the course, by the way, that you and I presently travel.

I hope I make the crossing with the same equanimity as Dad, Granddad and St. Mugg did.

JIM CARNETT, who lives in Costa Mesa, worked for Orange Coast College for 37 years.