Last Wish

by L J Hick

think I've kidnapped you."

  "There's no chance of that" she advised him. "They're all in Germany."

  "Is there no one at your home holding a meal for you?"

  "No. I'm an old maid preacher who has to fix her own supper. Or is it dinner? I'm never sure what the proper name for the evening meal is in English. In German we simply say 'evening meal' or Abendessen."

  "Well I'm a thoughtless student who has made you very late for your Abendessen, and I apologize."

  He had to allow her to get some nourishment, but he didn't want to let her go. Just as Ralph had said, she had brought psychological ... yes, even spiritual comfort to him. His loneliness and his apprehensions about his disease had been completely absent while they had been discussing the ideas of people like Kant and Hume and Leibniz.

  "Don't concern yourself about my being late for a meal" she offered. "Because of my job and my habits too, I often am late for meals. It doesn't bother me in the least. Sometimes I miss them completely."

  She meant to reassure him and was quite surprised to find she not only had not, she had stirred up a hornets' nest of physician concern.

  "Do you miss breakfasts?" he asked.

  "Sometimes" she admitted.

  "You must not do that!"

  The mantle of expertise immediately shifted from her shoulders to his. He stood over her and began an extended lecture about the health necessity of proper nutrition. Unlike Dr. Christine Heuber, Dr. Carl Frieder isn't a tolerant, nondirective teacher. He has very specific ideas about the role of proper nutrition in health, and he pointed them out in detail. Technically, the things he was telling her would be considered medical advice. Actually, however, they were orders, doctor's orders, and he made it clear that he expected her to follow them to the letter. She sat looking up at him with a warm, open expression just bordering on a smile. Not only did she take no offense at his criticisms of her meal skipping life style, she was completely open to it.

  "I'm not going to allow you to continue missing meals, especially not breakfasts! And there's no better time to start than now. Dr. Heuber, I made you late for your Abendessen, so it's my responsibility to correct matters. It's too late to eat here. The cafeteria is already closed. But there are two restaurants reasonably nearby, a Chinese and an Italian. Which one may I take you to for supper, ... dinner, ... Abendessen?"

  He expected her to try to decline with a variety of coy, perhaps even disingenuous excuses. After all, their acquaintance was brand-new. The reason for his invitation was to repay her for a meal he had caused her to miss, and the minimum of normally appropriate politeness requires one to decline such offers of reparation even if one wishes to accept. But she did not follow convention.

  "I like them both. Choose the one you like best."

  She accepted his brusque, unusual invitation with the same grace and naturalness as she had shown when she sat down on the floor to discuss philosophy, a grace and naturalness that characterizes everything about The Reverend Dr. Christine Heuber. Then she held up her hand in an implicit request for assistance in rising, assistance Carl was delighted he was still strong enough to provide.

  "I like them both, too" he said. "Why don't we leave the choice to chance?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. "Heads for Chinese, tails for Italian. That OK with you?"

  "OK" she answered.

  And the flip of the coin came up tails.

  III

  They continued discussing philosophy and addressing each other by professional title while they drove to the Italian restaurant and until they were in the process of ordering their meals. But when he diffidently asked if she would mind if he had a glass of wine with his meal the formality ended.

  "Carl, you're confusing Lutherans with Seventh Day Adventists or Mormons. I don't mind if you have wine with your meal. And I'd mind even less having some myself."

  He ruefully smiled at his nonbeliever ignorance about doctrinal matters. Then he ordered a bottle of Chianti. And the discussion of matters philosophical gave way to more personal matters such as how in her youth her family used to vacation in the Moselle river valley where, in exchange for room and board, they helped with the grape harvest and the first steps in the making of some of Germany's famous Moselle white wines. And he told how he and Simone had met in college and had fallen mutually in love on their very first date.

  When their orders came he sat respectfully as she, with the naturalness and grace so characteristic of everything she does, bowed her head and gave thanks. And that became the model of all their interactions. Each did and said those things appropriate for his or her particular belief. And each always tolerantly and respectfully allowed the other his or her different beliefs and practices.

  Whether a cause of or a result of this tolerance they found being together to be pleasant and gratifying. So much so that for the remainder of Carl's life they ate every meal together. Carl told himself this was necessary in order to correct her bad nutrition habits and help her develop good ones instead. Christine told herself this was necessary because Ralph Goodkin had told her loss of appetite was a problem in patients with Carl's condition and anything that helped him keep his appetite was good therapy. Both of these reasons were valid, but both were excuses not reasons. The reason they ate together was the joy they got from each other's company. And that was the same reason why for the rest of Carl's life they spent every moment together the Reverend Heuber could spare from her chaplain duties.

  IV

  Diseases are highly variable, just as are the persons who have them. Different persons suffering from the same terminal disease do not survive for the same amount of time. Indeed, even for a disease as grave as Carl's, while most patients fairly rapidly succumb, a rare patient manages to survive for five years, the usual criterion of an effective, though not certain cure. Unfortunately Carl was not one of them. However, he did survive much longer than he or Ralph Goodkin had expected when the CAT scan confirmed his metastatic pancreatic cancer diagnosis. At that time both of these experienced oncologists expected Carl to live less than a year, but he survived for almost twice that period, and he was in tolerable condition for most of that time.

  Goodkin attributed this greater than average survival to Carl's long time practice of good health habits, like exercise and adequate nutrition, and his avoidance of bad ones, like smoking. Carl attributed it to the therapeutic joy of his companionship with Christine. Christine attributed it to her prayers.

  But eventually he did succumb. When he did, Christine and Ralph took responsibility for arranging and conducting a memorial service. Carl, with his habitual reserve, had suggested to Christine that he didn't feel any need for a memorial. However she reminded him that memorials are for the survivors, not the deceased, so he had consented. But he told her no one would attend. How wrong he was. First, everyone in every department of the clinic he had helped found and where he had spent a lifetime practicing medicine wanted to attend. Ralph finally decided the only way to accommodate everyone was to close the clinic during the memorial. And at Christine's suggestion the nurses who had been Carl's assistants contacted patients whom Carl had been able to help survive and the family members of those whom he had been unable to save, persons who honored and respected him for the efforts he had made on behalf of their loved ones. They too attended in large numbers.

  So in the event, although he had no surviving family members, the memorial service overflowed with persons who came to honor and bid farewell to Dr. Carl Frieder. If it had been a concert rather than a memorial service its impresario would have been overjoyed because, as an impresario would have said, "The house was jammed!"

  Although Christine conducted the services they were completely secular. She included no prayers nor hymns. This wasn't at Carl's request, but rather because she wanted the memorial services to reflect who Dr. Carl Frieder was, not whom believers might prefer him to have been. And she took his nonbeliever status
as the theme of her eulogy. After a few introductory remarks she came to the heart of her message.

  "Because he never made a big thing of it, many of you, I suspect, do not know that Dr. Frieder was a completely skeptical agnostic, a confirmed nonbeliever. Most of you, I further suspect, are believers, as indeed am I. All too often we believers seem to feel we are morally obligated to oppose nonbelievers, even to hate and despise them. But Christians, by virtue of our beliefs, ought to love everyone, whether they believe or not. Indeed, Mathew tells us Christ instructed us to accept even those who oppose or harm us. He told us to 'turn the other cheek'.

  "How different our behavior is from that of the man we have come here today to remember. By far most of the people he treated and cared for, the patients whose lives his whole live was devoted to, were believers. Yet he never opposed their beliefs nor opposed these patients themselves. And he most certainly never hated nor despised them. The difference between him and ourselves, I suggest, occurs because our behavior is often motivated by an insecurity our faith is too weak to overcome. If someone doesn't believe we attack them because their doubts remind us that deep down inside we too have doubts which we cannot suppress. Whereas he was motivated not by doubts and fear, but by love.

  "When