August 27, 2008

On Smokey Before I Go

Gary Jacobson of Loveland, Colorado will be laid to rest this Friday. (read obituary) For as long I live I will remember Gary's passing as one of the most ironic events I have ever witnessed. Gary owned a ranch in Buckhorn Canyon in the foothills west of the Ft. Collins/Loveland area and east of Rocky Mountain National Park. He was a good friend of my father and spent nearly as many hours at his bedside in the oncology unit of Poudre Valley Regional Hospital as did family members. At the most critical phase of Dad's cancer, Gary flew to Holland at his own expense and made contact with a Dutch doctor who had developed some rather unorthodox treatments for stomach cancer. He paid for the treatments and imported them and then made sure that the doctors on both sides of the Atlantic were in touch and communicating as they treated my father.

After a recent and severely debilitating round of chemotherapy, Dad had his last PET Scan during which they discovered one remaining dark spot about the size of a thumbnail. It was unclear as to whether the spot was active and malignant or not so they performed a physical biopsy. The results came back negative - the only cells making up the remaining spot were dead cancer cells. They were unable to locate any further trace of living cancer or tumors. For us, this was very good news - and for the attending oncologists as well. So they all decided to celebrate by taking a trail ride into the Colorado foothills last Saturday. The group of five consisted of Dad, Gary, two oncologists (including Dr. Brown) and a medical technician who keeps horses as well. Shortly into the ride, Gary said he was thirsty, got off his horse and took a drink of water and complained of a tightness in his chest. The medical technician put him on one of her horses and they headed back to the trail head where Gary dismounted and laid on the ground to rest. He then went into cardiac arrest in the company of competent medical personnel who did all they could to stop the heart attack in process - but in vain. He passed away there on the trail with his boots on. Gary was not the one who was supposed to die. In many ways, he gave his life for a friend and for a family of friends, who will never forget him nor his thousand kindnesses. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to his wife and children.

This poem was written after Dad's initial diagnosis before he decided to pursue treatment. We had the conversation that lead up to the poem up at the old homestead in Stringtown, Colorado. It is recorded on my CD Rimrock - Where Memories Rhyme and has been described by western entertainment critic and reviewer Rick Huff as "one of the best I've encountered depicting an old cowboy's last ride." The photo is of Dad on his horse Smokey in Cascade Canyon, Teton Range. (Be sure to click on the title of this post to read Scott Child's comment.)

On Smokey Before I Go
by Paul Kern

Eighty-five and still a horseman, been a good run these long years,
He’s owned a string of good ones, but as he reins it in he hears,
Just one last ride if at all I can, on Smokey before I go.
Doc says my days are short, I suppose he’s right – I know.

He keeps a saddle in his truck; it forks an old grain sack.
His wife says just take it in; put it up with the other tack.
Know what I would like to do? Since for today I can’t ride,
Go up to the old homestead and watch the horses hit their stride.

If I rest for a couple of days, and save up the strength I lack,
Maybe I can lift that saddle up, and throw it on his back.
For today just let me be, in cool grass just sitting down,
In the company of horses, miles away from the noise of town.

I’ll gladly trade just one good day, with horses and sky and grass,
For the chemo and the feeding tubes and clinic with walls of glass.
Cancer caught him in its snare - it came stalking an evil way,
Where some pray to heal and others just curse the day.

Eighty-five and still a horseman, been a good run these long years,
He’s owned a string of good ones, but as he reins it in he hears,
Just one last ride if at all I can, on Smokey before I go.
Doc says my days are short, I know he’s right – I know.


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1 comment:

  1. Tony Snow was President Bush's former Press Secretary (and FOX-TV journalist/commentator before that) who recently died of cancer. Here is Tony's testimony about his experience. It is too well done not to read and then to share with others; a fine, Christian man.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,' Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

    The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.

    I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths began to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.

    But, despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

    Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes yo u. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

    To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life - and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away.

    Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, and exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.

    Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, - smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

    'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It's cancer,' the healer announces.

    The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.'

    But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

    There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived, an inexplicable shudder of excitement as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions.

    The moment you enter the 'Valley of the Shadow of Death', things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

    There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

    Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City. From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.

    We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquired purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.

    'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of life.

    I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment. 'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died. 'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'

    His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity - filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can, in the throes of sickness, point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.

    Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to
    submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations? Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?

    When our faith flags, God throws reminders in our way. Think of the prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.

    It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit . Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up - to speak to Him of us!

    This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the loving touch of God.

    'What is man that Thou are mindful of him?' We don't know much, but we do know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believes lies, each and every day, in the same safe and impregnable place: The hollow of God's hand! ---Tony Snow

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