Exit Stage Right: Conversations about the Drama of Finishing Strong and Dying Well

RIGHT

EXIT STAGE RIGHT

Conversations about the Drama of Finishing Strong & Dying Well

DARREL GILBERTSON & LYNN ANDERSON

EXIT STAGE RIGHT

Conversations about the Drama of Finishing Strong & Dying Well

Copyright 2008 by Darrel Gilbertson and Lynn Anderson

ISBN 978-0-89112-573-0

Printed in the United States of America

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without prior written consent.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishers.

Cover design by

Interior text design by Sandy Armstrong

For information contact:

Leafwood Publishers, Abilene, Texas

1-877-816-4455 toll free

www.leafwoodpublishers.com

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To loving parents now in glory, and to a family—especially my wife Barbara—so rich in merit and vibrant in their pursuit of life and its joys, I dedicate my efforts in this book.

—Darrel Gilbertson

To Miss T (Lillian M. Torkelson) teacher and mentor in my pivotal high school years. You finished strong—spreading hope and encouragement to the end. And you died well—last year at 94.

—Lynn Anderson

FOREWORD

I.

The United States is a youth-oriented society that is hesitant to talk about death. We admire the characteristics of youth and go to great lengths to deny that we are getting older. Eventually, though, we are confronted with our own mortality. For some, it comes on the heels of a medical diagnosis while others are reminded by the number of candles on their birthday cake. Either way, we are all terminal. Thus, the question is not will you die but what are you supposed to do while you are dying?

Philosophers, theologians, behavioral scientists, and others have wrestled with this question for centuries and have left an abundance of stage theories and philosophies in their wake. While each is valuable in its own right, the dying experience is a truly unique one that often defies the most well developed theory. It is a time of emotion, reflection, and evaluation as the dying individual assesses his or her past and contemplates the future. Exit Stage Right is designed to assist in this process. While theoretically sound, the brilliance of the book is that it is not written exclusively for an academic audience, though both authors have advanced degrees in their fields. Instead, it skillfully balances theory with the human experience by inviting the reader to share in the conversation between two veteran pastors. One (Lynn Anderson) contributes a pragmatic perspective rich with an emphasis on personal experience, while the other (Darrel Gilbertson) brings a more existential slant informed by the major thinkers to the dialogue.

As if moving through the acts of a drama, Lynn and Darrel explore questions that are vital to the human experience such as suffering, relationships, and dying. They discuss the journey of life and the quest for S-aging that requires one to confront the issues of mortality, identity, and legacy. And, most importantly, they consider these matters within the context of Darrel's terminal illness.

As the curtain falls on each act, the authors invite you to join them in the performance by considering your role in the drama of life and evaluating your performance thus far. In addition, they encourage you to write the script for the acts that are yet to come by pondering the deeper issues of life that go beyond promotion, consumption, and accumulation.

Exit Stage Right will change the way you view the dying process and, in so doing, will change the way you view life. I am confident that you will find this book to be unique in its approach, engaging in its style, and transforming in its content.

James L. Knapp, Professor of Sociology

Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Durant

Author of The Graying of the Flock (2003)

II.

The distilled essence of this marvelous book is this: Silence is our enemy. Transparency our gift.

Darrel and Lynn ask us to pull up a chair to their years of deep conversations about topics most of us avoid: dying and death. And those conversations are peppered with thought-provoking quotes, a sprinkle of humor, and intense transparency from these two very different—and very similar—ministers.

Read this book, and you'll be caught up in the script of a play being staged. More importantly, you'll also be gently but firmly pulled onstage. You'll be prodded towards transparency, clarity, and self-disclosure in your own journey towards a strong finish.

It's here in the pointed questions, the reflective, evocative thoughts, that you'll find God's faithful presence urging you onward. It's here that these two mentors invite us to join them in the quest to finish strong and die well.

As a hospital chaplain, as a caregiver to family members, and as a confessed mortality-denier, I know firsthand how vital this quest is. Such directed conversations don't occur naturally in a culture that insists we avoid death-talk as long as possible. Even Christians struggle mightily with addressing this major life issue. We all need that nudge to move beyond perceived permanence. This book gifts us with that needed nudge.

As we all encounter the three Master Prompters of suffering, relationships, and dying, we will find this book a welcome resource. For self-study, or even better, for small group studies, Exit Stage Right is a gem.

Thank you, Lynn and Darrel, for having the discipline to compile this much-needed resource that models faithfulness and transparency.

Virgil Fry

Executive Director, Lifeline Chaplaincy

M. D. Anderson Hospital, Houston, Texas

Author of Rekindled: Warmed by Fires of Hope (2007)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is a collaborative effort involving more than just the two of us. Key among these are: Dale Ruff and John Elverum who helped develop the concept, and Anne Silkman, Jim Maxwell, Joe Hale, and Joy Dennis, who read the emerging manuscript with careful eyes and loving hearts.

Dr. James Knapp and Dr. Bruce Davis, authors and university professors of gerontology, and Dr. Virgil Fry, Chaplain at M. D. Anderson Hospital, who read the later manuscripts carefully and gave professional council.

Judy Bowyer and Allison Bagley who keyed in countless hours of corrections and chased down endless footnotes.

Our children, Michele Anderson English, Jon Anderson, Tammy Gilbertson Testa, Joe Testa, Kari Gilbertson, Todd Gilbertson, Debbie Anderson Boggs, and Christopher Anderson, who were not bashful about asking pointed questions or advising us to get real.

Hats off also to the consummate professionals at Leafwood Publishers: Dr. Leonard Allen for carefully shepherding this project to completion and Greg Taylor whose editorial wizardry turned our manuscript into a sure-enough book.

Deep thanks especially to our life-long lovers, Barbara Gilbertson and Carolyn Anderson, for their encouragement and patience with this project. They traveled back and forth across Texas with us. They cooked gourmet meals. They provided keen insights and asked powerful questions. They prayed with us and for us. Most of all they have lovingly, passionately shared life and ministry with us for all these rich decades.

Thanks also to a long line of those now deceased who granted us the sacred privilege of walking the last miles of their lives with them and who have thereby mentored us.

Finally, thank you, O Lord God Almighty. You never waste any hurts.

—Darrel Gilbertson and Lynn Anderson

PROLOGUE

"To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who

have died, who neither listen nor speak . . ."

—EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

Glen Davidson inspired the guiding metaphor of this book, Dying as Theatre.¹ William Shakespeare said, All the world's a stage. Life is indeed grand theater. And this book borrows the theater metaphor to visit the high drama of finishing strong & dying well.

The play is the thing. And our title Exit Stage Right is itself a little play on words. The word exit means departure. In this case, departure from the stage of life: the later chapters of life and the final exit—death. The word right can mean the direction opposite to left. But the word right also means correct. So our book is about exiting correctly—the drama of finishing strong & dying well.

We call this drama "S-aging." S-aging is a combination of two words: Sage—or wisdom. And aging—or getting older. Of course, we hardly profess to know the one and only correct way to finish strong & die well. But we do offer our take on the plot of this drama—our experiences in these later scenes—plus our reflections on a healthy exit. And we have both walked the last miles with numerous beloved friends.

We have discovered some clear differences between the way men and women process aging and dying. And those differences raise questions that clearly deserve serious examination. We've shaped our various meetings into a script that plays out like a drama, and so we've restructured a few settings and pieces of dialogue to make it flow better for you as a reader and participant with us in the conversation.

Our little drama here is autobiographical—finishing strong & dying well as explored through the experiences of two men, who hardly feel qualified to speak credibly for women. (Our wives have taught us that.)

Of course women are definitely welcomed in the audience, and we hope they will feel included in much of the drama. Yet, our conversations assume that since we are males, the patrons sitting before the stage may be mostly males—thus we will play to men as men. But, after the play, all patrons are invited to the Appendix One for more gender specific information.

So friend, whoever you are we hope you enjoy the play.

Break a leg.

—Darrel Gilbertson and Lynn Anderson

PLAYERS

Introducing the Actors - Directors

Chapter One

A CAST OF TWO

The two men who both play the lead roles as well as direct the production

All of us are engaged in a life as stage performance, striving to manage the impression others have of us by engaging in an actor/audience agreement throughout life.

— CANADIAN, ERVIN GOFFMAN¹

KEY QUESTION: We asked ourselves how we might finish our lives strong & die well.

In the 1993 movie, Grumpy Old Men, a gang of senior males stumbles around in their own mortality—with outrageous, sometimes irreverent humor as well as poignant insight. But most of the older person characters in that movie are neither finishing strong nor dying well. A more recent 2008 movie, The Bucket List, certainly shows two men finishing strong! But what can we do to finish strong & die well?

The script you now hold in your hands is played by two men in the senior season of their lives, who also wrestle with mortality—but who really don't want to go out grumpy. Rather, we want to finish strong & die well—and help a few others do the same.

Scene 1

Darrel Gilbertson's daughter introduced the authors. She'd lived near Lynn Anderson in Dallas, and one sunny day they stood outside bragging about grandchildren and sharing pastoral war stories. Serious health issues had just forced Darrel from ministry sooner than he'd wished. Lynn was transitioning to lead a para-church organization.²

Soon after we met we discovered that our lives have followed strikingly parallel pathways. We were within two years of the same age—then at mid sixties. We both grew up in Scandinavian/North American cultural enclaves—both of us were raised on hard work in relatively poor farming operations by seriously religious families. Each of us has been married to his respective wife for more than forty years and both of us have grown children as well as grandchildren.

We have also walked somewhat parallel educational paths. We began in one room country grade schools, then after small high schools filled with hubris and athletic activities, both of us attended