A Reflection from Chris Luther

Sunday 16 September 2007

My friend Kelsey Tinkum forwaded to me the following reflection written by her good friend Chris Luther….

I read two books during my time in silence: Mountains Beyond Mountains and The Book of Mev. Mountains was a very good book about a doctor named Paul Farmer who worked tirelessly for the poor in Haiti and eventually elsewhere in the world. Mev is a book written by Mark Chmiel about his wife Mev Puleo and their relationship and life’s work. Mev died in her early 30′s from the same type of brain tumor that took my mom’s life, but not before living a rich life of working with and for the poor as a photojournalist and activist. Words can’t describe how moving the book was for me.

[About] Mev’s cancer:Lots of tears, lots of understanding, lots of memories. My Mom lasted four months after diagnosis. She had exactly the same cancer in exactly the same place in the brain. But her symptoms appeared more slowly than those of Mev. And her decline was much faster. There was no talk of beating the cancer, of living a high quality of life for as long as possible. I prayed that the end would come quickly, that Mom’s suffering would end. I was so alone those four months. So alone. I had help from a few people, but I held my Mom through seizures and bed wetting by myself all too often. I sat alone with her in her bedroom or hospital room all too often. We didn’t have dozens of people helping and supporting like Mark did. I was so happy for him as I was reading. The support they had from Mev’s parents. I didn’t have any of that. They were too afraid, ashamed to come, except for one short visit where my Grandma practically ran out of the bedroom after just a few minutes. I had a caregiver who did a lot of the messy work, but I had to be responsible for everything by myself. So alone.

It’s both inspiring and difficult to read the lives of extraordinary people. Difficult because it’s very hard for me to let God have control of my gifts and talents, to let him determine how they are to be used, to accept that I will probably never have a book written about me. Not that I want honors and accolades. Far from it. I want to make a difference, and unlike God, I can’t see what’s around the next corner. I don’t easily trust that my life, lived simply and according to God’s loving will for me, matters to others. I hope to grow in this area.