Estrangement by Dr. Juan Harrison

Estrangement

Nothing feels much worse than knowing what it feels like to be close to someone and then to have that feeling replaced by loneliness and isolation.  Heck, some of us can hardly handle fifteen minutes of our cable, satellite, or Internet being down in a storm.

As I visited shut-ins from my church in the nursing homes and rural parts of the county, I often found stories of separation from adult children.  Sometimes the folks I found there or even in my Sunday school class may have been fortunate to be financially or materially blessed.  Often there appeared to be issues of using material or financial control to help encourage family members to do more for or be available more for the emotionally needy controlling elderly demander-in-chief.  Unfortunately for many of them the potential recipients determined the price was too high, the bit cut too deeply into the corner of their mouths, to pay the price needed to stay on good terms with the bellicose benefactor.

All of us have probably had periods of strained relationships with loved ones or close friends.  Hopefully you were able to repair the damage and restart the marriage motor or get to hug the loved one once again.  Sadly, other relationships, much like a divorce, are severed and never get to be repaired.  I’ve watched wounded hearts with great material wealth fruitlessly seek to renew or restore relationships with estranged family members for years.  Sometimes they were able to reestablish a very tenuous, almost temporary peace, often actions by the potential beneficiary serving to give a minimal effort in hopes of keeping their place in line when the will is read.  Some people, like a friend I know, were able to develop a new relationship with a grandchild after the grand’s mother totally dropped out of my friend’s life.  A painful separation led to a sweet reunion with her grandchild that grows stronger each day.  

I often remember the agonizing cry of Jesus as he was separated from his father God as he moaned, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.”  Thankfully it was soon followed by, “Not my will but thine.”  Though the separation was only momentary and a part of God’s plan for salvation to be available to all men, we still find it hard to imagine the pain of the Father as He had to give up control and let his Son suffer through the crucifixion.

I see elderly parents looking toward their final demise with hope in their hearts for a reconciliation between themselves and a child or between some of their offspring.  They can’t bear the thought of family conflict being interjected into their final gathering as a family here on earth.  We don’t always get what we wish for.  Ideally even a funeral could be used for good.  A friend of mine said at three of the last four funerals he had attended, some kind of physical altercation had broken out.  That’s not a good memory to have.  I’m figuring that at most of mine and my friends’ funerals we’d be too old and disabled to get into a physical conflict.  Heck, at mine you might have to wake up one of the half dozen attendees to say a closing prayer.

By Dr. Juan Harrison