Final Gifts

By Samantha Terrell

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” – Isaiah 55:1

The last communion I ever took with my dad was grape juice from a prefilled plastic cup – the type that’s filled with creamer at the diner. We had a lot of losses in that era (at the moment, I can’t stomach counting them all), but Dad is the only one I got to commune with – behind a curtain pulled for privacy in the ICU. Our family minister, formerly from Ghana, made a joke about those ridiculous juice cups. He’s lived here many years. He knows of the sad, plastic American way of life which has made its way into literal and figurative sanctuaries like churches and hospitals. As a kid, I remember accompanying my dad on many similar visits. I would wait in the big hospital atrium while he would approach the desk tolearn the room number of a parishioner in their hour of need, then disappear into the long maze of corridors. On the drive there, I would’ve carefully opened his little black leather communion kit and admired its contents – the red velvet lining and small glass cups pressed into pre-molded shapes in the case. “Careful, Mandy,” he’d say, but he didn’t need to. Even at a tender age, I knew there was something sacred within. I’d take one last glance, then snap the closure. That day, though, all that stood between my dad and eternity was a disposable plastic cup and an urgent conversation with our minister. “Do you have any special funeral wishes? What’s your favorite Bible verse?,” and so on. “Oh, I think it’s the one from Isaiah…about ‘come, drink wine…buy food without cost,’” Dad said. I didn’t know I was coming to the hospital that day to drink, and buy and eat. I had thought only of the breadcrumb trail that was disappearing as fast as it fell – melting away like a communion biscuit on the tongue – a failed attempt to mark the path to a place where, this time, I couldn’t accompany him. In those final days, I was being left in a big atrium again, as pieces of a life were dying for me too – being continually re-imagined, then tossed out like single-portion plastic cups – over and over. The pieces I tried to salvage crumbled in my grasp; “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” But it’s a gift (one my dad was well-acquainted with) to commune with the dying. I think I live a little freer now, having tried to clutch death in my fist and being forced to let go.