Life & Death in the Budimlic Family

In a fallen world, hospitals are perplexing places. They can represent the very best of times, such as the birth of a child, and the very worst of times, as with the death of a loved one. Indeed, life and death are so often held in the palms of a simple hospital bed.

Begun originally by Christians in whichever culture the people of God found themselves—cultures that unashamedly abandoned the weak and sick to the whims of nature—hospitals were instituted with the express purpose of preserving life. Those caretakers within hospital walls were to perform lifesaving operations, treat deadly illnesses, and, of course, deliver children.

As societal institutions, hospitals themselves flow directly downstream from the principles championed in the “Hippocratic Oath”—the “Do no harm” principle adopted by medical doctors and other healthcare professionals. However, as already aforementioned, we yet still live in a fallen world, and sometimes death—seemingly—prevails, even against our best wishes and most earnest prayers.

It’s funny how when something in particular is on your mind, you begin to see that particular something everywhere. Are you looking to buy a certain make of car? Well, guess which type of vehicle you’ll begin seeing all over town—almost as though advertisers were targeting you. Similarly, in the weeks leading up to the birth of our son, it seemed as though any movie or television show my wife and I watched also featured a pregnant woman or a storyline about the birth of a child. The most notable of these examples being Lost, a television show about survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

Speaking of hospitals, do you know the last place you might find one? A desert island. As you can imagine, this presents something of a problem, particularly if you only just barely walked away alive from a plane crash. And even among those who survived the crash with only minor scrapes and bruises, medical care is still necessary from time to time. Indeed, as with everyday societal life, people get sick, they suffer injury, or, like twenty-something Claire, they are a young woman nearing the end of their third trimester.

One of the main characters in the show, Jack Shephard, is a spinal surgeon who quickly becomes the established leader among the castaways, lending his skills as a doctor to the many life-and-death situations that arise on the island. He is, however, just one man; a man with sparse and rudimentary equipment at best, only a handful of medications—and no hospital to speak of.

All these factors—the harsh conditions of the island, the fragility of life, and Jack’s limitations as both a doctor and leader—come to a tragic head near the end of Lost’s first season. In what is undoubtedly one of the show’s finest episodes, life and death hang in the balance as Jack attempts to perform haphazard surgery on a young man, Boone, who has suffered a terrible fall. At the same time, pregnant Claire goes into sudden, unexpected labor only a few hundred feet away in a nearby patch of jungle. Jack, the only doctor on the deserted island, can’t be in both places at once. The episode is named fittingly: “Do No Harm.”

Perspectives shift back and forth between characters as the dual drama unfolds. The primary focus is on Jack as he exhausts every iota of his medical knowledge in an effort to save the young man, going so far as to personally give a blood transfusion to Boone while simultaneously performing surgery on him. Meanwhile, Kate, another castaway, aids Claire with the birth of her baby not far from where Boone is slowly dying.

Despite his best efforts and medical acumen, Boone’s life slips from Jack’s hands even as Kate helps bring a new life into the world. One life begins almost as swiftly as another draws to a close—“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).

Haunting the scenes as they flit between life and death is Michael Giacchino’s equally haunting score, concluding the episode with a song most appropriately titled “Life and Death.”

In a fallen world, hospitals are perplexing places. I had this thought a few weeks ago as my wife and I sat in our room at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. It was, truly, the very best of times—our son, our firstborn, had just entered into the world. It was in that moment, and in the days which followed, that I tasted over and over again a joy I had never before thought possible. And yet, now and again, even as I sat holding my boy in my arms for the first time, I felt a tug on my heart reminding me of the worst of times—the passing of my father. A passing that, in God’s providence, had taken place in the very same building only a few years before.

Hospitals are indeed perplexing places. For where else in all the world can a child be born only a few hundred feet from where their own father was born? From where their grandfather passed away? Where else can one life begin almost as swiftly as another draws to a close? How can one building—a single hospital—hold within it so many conflicting memories?

I vividly remember the moon-stained clouds and billowing smokestacks that greeted my family on our way out from Cambridge Memorial’s cancer wing the night my father went home to be with the Lord. It was as though there were a shadowy veneer drawn tightly across the world to match the sorrow we found ourselves wading through as a family.

And I will never forget how, eight years later and a few hundred feet over in the Labour and Delivery ward, golden light seeped through the windows on a warm May evening when my son was born. Light and life and warmth and a gentle breeze rubbing shoulders with the first of Spring’s flowers welcomed my son as he awoke softly in this fallen, staggeringly beautiful world.

Life and death; sunlight and shadow—sometimes, it would seem, the world around imitates the world within.

With a post like this, it’s typically around this point that I bring together the various threads I’ve begun to weave, drawing into tighter focus some larger thoughts and reflections on life, death, and the sovereign purposes of God in both. Only, I’m not going to do that this time. Not how I usually do, that is.

The death of a father, the birth of a son—many things can be said, perhaps many of which have been said already, whether here or elsewhere. Sometimes, however, it is best to speak little—“a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:7). Sometimes, it is best to let grief breathe; best to let the weight and sorrow of life in a fallen world sit heavily for a moment rather than rush to explain it all away with reflections and lessons which, however precise, are of little help in the heart of the moment.

Because we serve a sovereign God, there is no such thing as suffering without purpose—it’s true. Indeed, there’s no such thing as anything without some ultimate purpose: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). God is good, and He works all things out for His good pleasure, even that which is bad, detestable, and utterly inconceivable. As Joseph said to his brothers after a lifetime of riding the bull that is God’s providence, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20).

However, just because there’s always a purpose—some ultimate why—behind our suffering, sorrow, and grief, that doesn’t mean we are always privy to the explanation. And sometimes even when God does reveal to us the why of our suffering, or some part of it, that doesn’t necessarily absolve the pain of it—nor, in my opinion, should it.

There is a certain Christlikeness to embracing sorrow—“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). As He stood outside the tomb of Lazarus in John 11, Christ knew what He was about to do. He knew that everything was going to be alright, that the dead man would come to life again, both in the coming moments and in the everlasting hereafter. And yet, John tells us that the Lord “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33) because of the death of His friend and the heartache that such a thief introduced into the lives of those around Him.

To the delight of Sunday School children everywhere who are tasked with memorizing Scripture, we are told in the Bible’s shortest verse that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) outside the tomb of Lazarus. Jesus Himself—the One who at the end of all things stoops to wipe away forever the tears from the eyes of His children—wept with no one to dry His face.

Knowing that all will be well in the end is not a reason to entirely forgo weeping in the moment. We must weep as those who have hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). No one possesses more joy than the Lord Jesus Christ; and yet no one in all of human history has drunk as deeply from the bitter wells of sorrow as He has.

I know, down to the very bedrock of my being, that all will be well in the end because of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel—abundantly, infinitely well. I also know that things must be made well because a great many things are currently so terribly unwell. If everything were already alright, there would be nothing for Christ to set right upon His return. I can, and will, grieve over what sin and death have taken from me because of how contrary and intrusive these twin evils are to the heart of God and the joy of His people.

I can grieve over the fallenness of this world and all that stems from it because the Lord Himself grieves over it—with hope. With hope of that future, glorious deliverance which He shall surely bring to pass. Because of the Gospel, I can joyfully and confidently mourn the unhappy reality that my Tata wasn’t here to see me become a Tata myself. I don’t know why God has allowed this to be so, but He did. In the best of times, I can see dimly lit shadows and hear far-off echoes of what He is doing, but I find that, at most, I am only skirting the edges of His wisdom.

And so, in the meantime, I will grieve as one who has hope. I will grieve with a hope that looks ahead to a New Heavens and a New Earth where all these former things—death, illness, hospitals—have passed away. My faith is set on that happy, immovable future where death has been swallowed up by life, where hospitals have been torn down and replaced with mansions—where sons and fathers and grandfathers leave behind such dusty titles and, as brothers in Christ, embrace one another before the throne of their Heavenly Father.

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Photo by Ricardo Resende, Unsplash

Author’s Note: If you enjoyed this post, I would recommend reading this one as well: “For Everything There is a Seasoning.”

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