This is an absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful story.  If it doesn’t make you cry, it will at least make the tears well up in your eyes. I would include some of it here in a blockquote, but I couldn’t bear to lift any piece of it on its own.

As I read, I was reminded of my time in late November, at my grandmother’s bedside in the hospital and in the hospice.  Nana was unable to really respond to us, but she heard us and I believe she could understand some of what we were talking about.  When the conversation became agitated, because my sister got screwed over by the airline, Nana became restless and made sounds of pain.  But when we sat around sharing memories and family stories, laughing about Nana’s foibles and our own, she was peaceful.  Her brow would un-furrow, and she would lie still and quiet.

Not only do people talk about family when they are dying, but that’s what the people around them talk about.  Our lives are made up of stories, and our relationships are made up of shared stories.  When you peel away all the trappings of our lives, that’s what we have left: our selves, our families, our stories.  This is how we know just the slightest bit about God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s grace.

Go read the story.  You’ll be glad you did.

This sermon made me cry, just reading it.  I can’t imagine what I would have been like hearing it in person.  Go and read.  Go and listen.

It was a hot summer day, so hot that the air conditioning didn’t make much difference. The hospital had that “hospital” smell; you know what it’s like: that mix of antiseptic and floor polish, covering but not concealing the evident aroma of sick and ailing humanity. It was mid-afternoon, a sleepy time of day, and I’d just as soon have been taking a nap! I’d been making my chaplain’s rounds most of the day, checking in on patients I’d seen before, and visiting new arrivals.

Then I noticed, in the posting at the nurses’ station, that one of the patients I’d been seeing quite a bit of was going to be discharged that afternoon. I headed to her room, wanting to say goodbye and wish her well. As I got to the doorway, I saw that she was on the phone, so I motioned that I’d wait in the hall. I just stood outside her door, leaning with my back against the wall, my suit jacket feeling a bit uncomfortable, that little trickle of sweat going down my back in the still air and humid warmth.

Just then, a man stuck his head out of the next room down, out of the doorway, stared at me intently for a moment, then turned his head back into the room and said, “Here he is!”  …..

I really mean it.  Click here and go read the rest.