Chaplain David Fries on partnering with the dying

Death’s Conception Prayer

9:40 PM; concert hall; 1st movement Braham’s 4th Symphony. The beeper in my trouser pocket buzzes my left thigh. Man is dying and wants a chaplain. How to — without a Book of Common Prayer (BCP) — help an Episcopal die?

Heavy-mouthed and heavy-tongued (like Moses) the dying patent looked at me. I Aaron? Two strangers had become brothers to the Promised Land, until they dearly parted. When partnering with the dying it is always the first time for each.

My instincts suggested; my training assented to a means. 1st - Give blessed assurance. G_d, saw, heard, and responded to him. I was evidence. 2nd - Create a sacred space for drawing last breaths.

His breath evenly pulsed in hollow bursts. With each breath I said simple words. “Faith”; “Grace”; “Love”; “Comfort”; “Peace”; and "Holy" etc.; a breathing litany. I matched his rhythm. I pray, someday, this for me. Our eyes were in symbiotic communion. We breathed together. Fear? Passing away. Where?

Next, create a space. I wombed him with light. He welcomed me to. I knew. One does when in communion.

I placed my right hand on his head’s crown and said: “Through my hand G_d touches you. G_d gives you light. Let that light that comes through my hand womb you. Let the light that passes from G_d through my hand enter your head womb you now.”

Progressively, head to toe I suggestively wombed his body in G_d’s light. At the end, I said, “Now I am going to hold your left hand with my left hand. Your womb of light will be complete. Receive the life — the light — the love that will womb you into Eternity’s rest and Heaven’s glory. Allow this womb of light to so nurture you as the womb that brought you to this moment did — Continue on your journey — New life, new life.”

At this point his breathing was ceasing. The inside of his mouth was filling up with matter. He was advancing. I was nurturing.

It was so smooth a slip into that next place. The three women at the foot of the bed who had been attending him grasped the passing before I did. I did not comprehend the moment of our birth. Twins for a time we were.

I will never have the established authority of a priest. The Last Sacrament is for consecrated hands. Holy Mother The Church’s authority ambiguously authorizes me and causes doubt. She taught me the vocabulary of essential holiness. Need prescribes application. I was in a conflict between Tradition’s necessary power and Death’s spontaneous authority. The power of the BCP history was absent. Urgency effected an improvised last sacrament. G_d was facilitating my hands without historic formulas. I had not doubt. I had no spiritual impotency. Ironically, unstoppable existing conditions imposed freedom. I fertilized a womb. His eyes said “Amen” when I sought his consent. His delivery was by loving hands. He died at birth. He left me.

“He was waiting for you,” the ladies said. They all cried happily at the end.

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