There was no imposition of ashes on that Ash Wednesday.

In the early evening, I waited at the airport for my sister, Allison.  She had planned another trip, but something had told her not to book it.  At the last second, she used that money to set a flight for Portland instead.  I was parked in short-term parking, as close as possible to the arrivals, in order to make a fast getaway.  I waited, looking for any way to make things go faster.

Mom had called and said not to delay.  Breathing was labored, and a morphine patch would be applied to ease the distress.  There was no more time to waste.  The plane was on time, and after a hasty greeting while moving through the airport, we found the car and made our way to the freeway as quickly as possible for the 50-mile drive south.

Once on the road, I said to Allison, “I want to warn you, Grandma doesn’t look the same as the last time you saw her.”  I had been down to visit frequently in the evenings after work, and on weekends.  I wanted to warn my sister of how thin she was, how her eyes and skin were yellow, and how weak she would be.

A handful or two of days prior, Grandma told me weakly, “I’ve made up my mind.  I’m going to fight this.  I’m going to do what the doctors say.  I’m going to beat it.”  It was an aggressive tumor surrounding her bile drain tube, squeezing down on it and shutting off its flow, causing a chain reaction of failures.  I don’t think any of us knew just how bad it was, not until a day or two before.  Various treatments were used and more were planned.  One kind of stent was inserted to keep the drain open, and that failing, another more robust one was planned.  But that was called off.   I had not been there yet that day, but had been told the decline was rapid.  We knew this was really happening.  Grandma was dying.

Mom and Dad, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and now my sister and I were there in the hospital room.  Only my brother, Austin, was missing.  He had finished his day teaching in a small town 250 miles to the south, changed his clothes, and was on his motorcycle heading up the freeway over mountain passes in the cold February air.  “Go Austin, Go!” I thought.

Grandma’s breathing was rough, impeded by fluid in her respiratory system, rattling.  I sat nearby, I stood, I held her hand, I talked with my family.  I didn’t really know what to do.  When it seemed best, I took her hand, whispered my name in her ear, and told her that I loved her.  I told her that I thought it would seem just a short time to her, but we would all be there right behind her.  I said goodbye.  Her breathing was in gasps, moments of stillness between.  Others said their goodbyes too.  We watched, helplessly.

Her pastor, Pastor Brauer, came to the hospital after the Ash Wednesday service at Redeemer.  He performed a Service of Commendation of the Dying, tracing on her forehead the cross he had made with ashes on the foreheads of his other parishioners that night.  “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Her breathing became slower, the gasps more shallow, the moments longer.  I looked to my cousin, a nurse, for what this meant.  She confirmed what I already knew.

My heart was breaking.  It was breaking for myself, for all the memories of my Grandma.  My mind raced through all these as if they would depart with her, and I wanted to catalog them so they wouldn’t slip away.  This is the grandma whom I followed as she vacuumed her formal living room.  And as I followed, I carried a little chair stamping four feet marks in the smoothed golden carpet at every step, in awe of the pattern on the canvas she had smoothed for me.  The memory is actually in her telling of the story, and the many stories she told . . . feeding a whole stack of ears of corn to the hogs after they were shucked for dinner . . . filling the newly planted and tied-up cauliflower with dirt . . . other things I don’t actually remember.  The memory is of her smile and laughter, the laughter that was hard to stop once it was started.

For all the thousands of memories fixed in sounds, actions, looks, places, and pictures, the most vivid is the smell of Grandpa cooking bacon, then frying eggs in the bacon grease, of toast and coffee, and the ever-present smell of Grandma’s perfume mixed in.  That was the smell of waking up at Grandma and Grandpa’s in my childhood.  Grandma and Grandpa’s was the very best place to visit on the surface of the Earth.

I wanted that smell back again.  It wasn’t just her – it was her and Grandpa together – as it should be – as it seemed it always was.  My heart was breaking for him.  His wife of 60 years was being called away.  He had asked her to marry him the third time they met.

After his basic training, they met a fourth time and were married that day.  The next day, he shipped out for the war in Europe, and she waited the 16 months until he returned.  In the remaining 59 years, there was one argument, and only one.  Their younger child, my aunt, an infant, was crying.  Grandpa held her that early morning.  Grandma asked him to give her the baby so he could go and milk the cows.  He said no.  That was it, the entire sum and substance of the argument.

I can point to nothing, save the hand of God, that could explain my Grandma and Grandpa.  Almost unbelieveable, their love for each other, and the way they treated each other seems to be located the smallest degree this side of impossible.  And yet it was.  He now sat beside her and held her hand, as she lay looking upward from the bed, those breaths becoming more and more delayed.

There was no imposition of ashes for any of us that Ash Wednesday, save Pastor Brauer.  None was needed.  The imposition of ashes as a symbol of repentance at the beginning of Lent is tradition and is not mandatory.  I have heard it said that to put on ashes, the recognition and of our sin and the penalty for it, is only half the confession . . . that the baptismal font should immediately follow the imposition, washing away the ashes, a remembrance of our baptism when we were baptized into death with Christ.  No, that Ash Wednesday, the consequence of sin was staring us in the face, in the dying body of my Grandma.  She was becoming dust before our eyes.

Where is Austin!  Dad was on the phone in the corridor.  Austin was circling the hospital outside, and did not know where to go.  Should I go and point the direction?  Should I go and take his bike?  I don’t know how a motorcycle works, what would I do with it?  How would I park it?  It’s after visiting hours, and he will need to be checked in and cleared by the guards at the door. . . can I go and let them know he is coming?  How can I get him here faster?  I already got to say goodbye, he should be able to . . .

Her breathing was barely perceptible.  It was so long between breaths . . . long suspensions . . . and then . . . she simply stopped.  Her pulse faded, and peacefully, she died.  Her burden was lifted.  Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, the sentence pronounced at her baptism finished, she went to her Lord’s side.  And there she waits as we do here, for the fulfillment of His promise, and to receive her body made anew.

Grandpa was in shock . . . grief beyond expression.  He had quit his job just a few days before in order to take care of Grandma full-time.  But that was not God’s will.  Now what . . . ?  The next few years would be hardest.

I met Austin at the door of the room two minutes later . . . two minutes. “I’m sorry, Austin . . . ” My heart was breaking for my brother.  Breathless, he put his hands on his knees for a moment, then stood upright, and went in.  Two minutes.  80 miles an hour for 250 miles in the cold winter air . . . two minutes.

Is there a better way to die?  Is there a better way than with the knowledge that your debt was already paid centures ago, His name marked on you by the Spirit in the plain water of Holy Baptism, and forgiveness received in His body and blood?  Is there a better way to live?

There was no imposition of ashes that Ash Wednesday.