The Gift
Peter and Mitzi Kintz
The word for “witness” in Latin is “testis,” from which the words “testify” and “testament” come. Peter and I sit before you to share what we’ve witnessed over the past 10 months.
Exhibit A: a 38-year marriage of two people, close friends from the beginning. We delighted in our children. We both were blessed enough to find some avocations that we loved to pursue: Peter carved ducks, I wrote and taught. Humor has loomed large for us always. Regarding faith in Christ, it was an alive part of our being. In early days, I dragged Peter to couples’ retreats, wanting him to “surrender” his life to Christ. In the 1980’s Peter began to read the Bible cover to cover on his own and took extensive notes. He became rather mystical as he delved. From 2000 on he was interested in Mercy—God’s as well as how we are charged to mete it out– and how little he saw it in today’s world.
Exhibit B: Peter’s report from his physical at The Emory Clinic, dated May 30, 2008: all satisfactory; signed “My Best,” and the doctor’s name.
Exhibit C: June 8: visiting my cousins in Charlottesville, Virginia. The husbands had served in the military during Viet Nam and were sharing war stories in the den. I was downstairs in the basement reading a novel . I heard something fall above me, and for some reason pictured a case of bottled water. One of the cousins came to the head of the stairs and called down softly: “Mitzi, can you come up here a minute? We think something may have happened to Peter.” I ascended the stairs and saw Peter, conscious, curled on the floor. The cousins had already called 911. Don’t ask me why, but we were all calm.
A Bible my cousin had handed me is Exhibit D. In the Emergency Room a doctor saw me reading it and asked if I needed a chaplain. “This is my chaplain,” I said. The verse I found and claimed was Psalm 27, verse 13: “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”
Exhibit E: God Calling on June 9, the day after the stroke: “Your discipleship is an obstacle race. ‘So run that ye may obtain.’ Obtain not only your hearts’ desires, but obtain Me—your souls’ Joy and Haven. What would you think of the runner who threw himself on the ground in despondency at the first hurdle? Over, and on and up. I am your leader and your goal.”
Exhibit F is Peter himself. No moaning, no complaining, no taker of pain pills or sedatives, ever, from that moment till this. Even as he was iced down, given swallowing tests, entubated, endured a feeding tube for the next two months, the man gave off a quiet self-respect and dignity and a kind of strength none of us could miss, as he spent the next two weeks in the ICU. “He’s okay, he’s going to be okay,” I think we all seemed to sense. The children came: Andrew’s sister Jennifer Goodrich, four months pregnant; Andrew, Towles, Claire and Ivy. We read to Peter and laughed. Andrew and Towles sang to him. We took pictures in of us, of the grandchildren, the dogs, safety-pinning the photos to the curtains.
Exhibit G: the children’s and friends’ love. Towles creating the Caring Bridge Web Site, which was never cloying or sentimental but straightforward with updates and prayer requests. Soon, friends far and near were sending prayerful, energized, original and sometimes humorous get-well wishes Peter’s way. Oh the power of the written words, electronic or otherwise, to gladden and strengthen our bodies and hearts! Towles’ devising a Meal Calendar for our home arrival. The extraordinarily positive and hopeful time at Shepherd; Peter’s real progress. Andrew’s finding Elizabeth Riley, Peter’s (and my) phenomenal caregiver. The children sitting down with me and making me pay VISA bills in full, cutting up my credit cards, and advising me I could never go out to eat again or shop at TJ Maxx.
Prayer at this time and forward eliminating any room for negative speculation.
An entry on The Caring Bridge site written by Richard Childers on July 11 I’d like to read:
It was love that quickly saved you;
It was love that brought you home;
It is love that you now ride upon,
And it is love will set you free.
Receiving So Much . It is a heady thing. To be on the accepting end of gifts of time, of money, of food, of yard work, of visits, of vigils, and mainly of prayers makes a body tender and humble. All I can tell you is that it changes one’s DNA. A previous version of myself is no longer available for comment.
As if that bounty were not enough, God, once He had our attention, sent something to us that I do not pretend to understand: He is with us in our little house providing JOY and a script being played out in God’s reality, not our reality.
I asked Peter what he thinks has happened and he will now read what he said to me a few weeks back.
God’s told me that I’ll get what I want: that I’ll be able to go. He’ll give me the readiness to get well and thrive.
[Why do you think you’ve never complained?]
Because I’m going to get what I want.
He has not spoken to me. He doesn’t speak to anybody. My assurance comes from Something.
I haven’t ever been “through” anything. God would have put me through a test much sooner.
I feel that nothing has been lost, and in fact, that something has been gained.
I’ve gained you [Mitzi]in a way I didn’t have you before. I don’t know that what we had wasn’t that good: it’s just that now we put each other first, but maybe before we didn’t. There was a time when we were far, and now we’re close.
Before there was a resistance. Now something good is growing. I know how it’s going and before I didn’t know.
The love we started out on is now being fulfilled.
It’s a gift from God to us.
He’s got us and he’s just got us.
Last Sunday was Pentecost, the third great celebration in the Christian calendar. We have big celebrations around Christmas, which celebrates God the Father who gave the gift of Jesus. And we have big celebrations around Easter, which celebrates Jesus’ death and resurrection and how Jesus changes everything in our lives. But most churches don’t make much of Pentecost, which celebrates the Holy Spirit’s active and on-going role in our lives.
