My week began with a voice mail message on my cell phone. "Hi Paul, this is Paige Rosen, I have some bad news for you. Rick had a massive heart attack last night and he died....he was very fond of you...I have to go an make some funeral arrangements this morning." I was driving when I heard that message.I pulled over and began to cry. I called my my and she began to cry.
Rick was a healthy 51 year old man. He was watching TV lying on his couch with his wife next to him. It was 9.15 PM.Sunday night. He had put up the Christmas tree that morning and ate dinner with his wife and two children and was just relaxing like any other Sunday in his life. Around 9.30 PM, Paige noticed Rick twitching his face and she asked him if he was OK. He did not respond. She got up and touched his hand and raised it, but it fell down. He was loosing air fast. She called 911. She was told to give him CPR which she did and the ambulance took him to hospital. Rick died at 1.15 AM.
For the whole day, I was under the grip of this unexplainable and inconsolable sense of sadness and grief, thinking about the kind of man Rick was, the inevitability and unpredictability of death and the mystery of life itself.
Although I work as a hospice chaplain, Rick's death affected me so much because he was like family. I had the honor of officiating his marriage six years ago. With profound sadness, I also officiated his funeral on Wednesday. It was a difficult week. Tomorrow is Sunday, and the Lord will once again lift my spirits.
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