Leadership Thought: What Must It Be Like to Die Alone?

Dear Friends,

I will never forget the conversation I had with Cleve Bell who was involved in a prison ministry while I was pastoring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He shared with me how one of his volunteers had not shown up for work, and after a few days he went to visit him. Sadly, he found Jim dead in his home. He had gotten himself cleaned up from drugs several years ago, but the damage had been done to his family. His wife divorced him, and his family disowned him.  There he was living all by himself those many years with a heart to serve others, but with a family whose heart was bitter and consumed by an unforgiving spirit. And as Cleve concluded the story, I will never forget his sorrowful words: “He died alone.”

As I thought about those words this morning, I thought about the many who have died alone, the result of Covid. They spent the last days of their lives in a hospital, unable to see family and friends. I wondered how many of them, like Cleve’s friend, might have died, knowing they died “with still unfinished business.”

I wonder if Jesus must have felt the same way. Yes, his mother was there and so was John, and maybe a few of the other disciples, but for the most part you would have to say He died alone. Where were the ones He healed, the Gadarene demoniac, the women with a flow of blood, the man born blind? Were they there? There is no mention of any of them being present.

What would it be like to die alone? What was it like for Cleve’s friend to go through life without a family who cared and who was willing to overlook and forgive the past?

There is a scene from a movie a number of years ago called “Nobody’s Fool.” There is a working man named Donald Sullivan. Everybody calls him Sully. He is about sixty years old, having spent his whole life in the same town. When his parents died, he inherited their house. He never moved in. Instead he left it alone. It was the house where his father beat him as a child. So, he has chosen to leave it alone, and every day he drives by to watch it slowly fall apart. One day he takes one of his friends, a builder, through that broken-down house.

The builder says, “Sully, you could have saved this place. You could have fixed it up a little bit, rented it out. You could have sold it and put the money in your pocketbook. Instead you have chosen to stick it to your old man. What’s it been-thirty, thirty-five years? You still keeping score? Well, here’s the good news: you won.” The Arithmetic of Forgiveness, William Carter, quoted from the internet.

How many people are there who think they have won because they were unwilling to reach out and forgive? For them it is a sign of weakness. I will never humble myself and forgive that so and so. Why look what he did to me, and to my family…Yes, in their mind they think they won, but they really lost. They lost an opportunity to bring healing, pardon, forgiveness, and restoration to a sad and broken life, who like Jesus died mostly alone.

If God stopped keeping score on us, why is it that we feel we have to keep score on those around us? “Father forgive us, for we know not what we do.”

Remember, “He who cannot forgive breaks the bride over which he himself must pass.” George Hebert.

And if you happen to be one of those broken bridge people, let me encourage you to take a look at Matthew 18:21-35.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom