Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Homage to Griffin

The word "sacrament" comes from the Latin sacrare, "to make sacred."

He is lying in the bed, in restless sleep. His lips are cracked and dry. The jaundice is so pervasive his skin looks like a dark yellow suede.

"Mom," he moans, oblivious to all else.

His mother, my aunt, is not here yet. I dip a sponge swab into water and use it to moisten his lips.

In Catholicism, the first sacrament is Baptism, in which the child is cleansed of Original Sin-- the sins of his ancestors.

We never thought that the cancer would get to him. He told us when he was diagnosed that he would be fine... just a few treatments. He'd skip the treatments, disappear for a while, eventually come back. And when he returned to the doctor, he'd come back and all would be the same... just a few treatments, and he'd be fine.

"Cocaine must be a cure for cancer," my mother said, her face set in a thin line. We'd seen my prim, dainty great-aunt die of liver cancer; we'd seen the indignities of the disease. My great-aunt, though, was an "innocent"-- nothing in her lifestyle should have brought on the cancer, nothing in her behavior warranted the suffering she had at the end of her life.

The second sacrament is Holy Eucharist, in which one partakes of the bread and wine that have, through Transubstantiation, been transformed into the body and blood of Christ.

I don't know at what age my cousin started using. I know that by the time he was 12, he was constantly in trouble and smoking pot. I wonder if he started first by drinking like so many do, sneaking sips from his parents' liquor cabinet. His mother claimed she started drinking because she used to get drunk from the fumes cleaning out the wine casks in my great-grandmother's cellar. His father, my uncle, had supposedly started when an injury put an end to his baseball career. My uncle used to say, "first the man takes the drink, then the drink takes the man." Who knows why things begin? Perhaps we can only choose what they will become.

Because of its golden color, Topaz, the November birthstone, has also been called "the gem of the setting sun."

My aunt arrives. She cannot look at the yellow figure on the bed, writhing in pain: her son, the namesake of her dead ex-husband, her youngest, her baby.

Topaz is an extremely hard stone, but like diamond, it can be broken with a single blow.

I wonder if there was a time when he said, "I am an addict." Not in the rehearsed speech of an AA or an NA meeting, nor in the many sessions of rehab that he went through in lieu of jail time, but a time when he said to himself, from the deepest recesses of his heart, "I am an addict." Was there one single, deciding moment in which the disease became the definition of his being?

Through the sacrament of Confirmation, the adult acknowledges that he is capable of reason, and that it is his free and conscious decision to live a Christian life.

Many times, cancer begins in one part of the body and spreads throughout the system. One by one, other organs are affected. My cousin's cancer was first found in the colon. It eventually spread to his liver. Consumed by the disease, his liver could no longer filter his blood. My cousin's body was literally poisoning itself.

According to folklore, one may use topaz to detect the presence of poison.

One by one, we, his family, fill the room to say goodbye. His body still shifts back and forth restlessly, throwing off blankets as he twists and turns. His eyes, at times open, are yellow but unseeing. His daughter, herself a child, cries while cradling her baby. "Daddy," she weeps, "do you know I'm here?" She begins sobbing so heavily that she can no longer speak.

The day of his funeral, she would tell us how, during that last week, she had seen her father, too weak to stand, making his way down the street. He had found a branch and was using it as a cane. He had left a warm, safe bed to brave the March cold-- all in search of a fix.

With pride in her voice, she told us that she had brought him home.

The fifth sacrament, that of Holy Orders, is received by few. It represents a response to the invitation to minister God's work in this world. Many instead consummate the sacrament of Matrimony, the union between man and woman that mirrors the union between Christ and the Church.

In the Beginning, there was the Word. In Genesis I, God says the word, and through language, creates the world.

I remember my students, inmates at a juvenile facility, learning about word roots in a class. They got into breaking words apart to figure out meaning. They wanted to figure out the root of "addict." They decided that, like the word "dictate," it meant "speech."

Is this what addiction is? The only way to communicate when worlds -- and words-- fail? When giving language to the pain would make it far too real?

Topaz was used in Classical Roman times as an amulet to protect its wearer from harm.

My cousin died that night. I could not cry. I had always feared a worse end for him, one of an overdose, on the streets, painfully alone, not to be found until far too late. Could I say that his cancer was a gift? Despite the pain his behavior had caused so many, he died in a warm, safe place, surrounded by those who loved him.

I was still angry with him.

The sacrament of Penance marks the penitent's deep sorrow at his transgressions, and through absolution, the sinner is freed from the burdens of his sins.

A short time after my cousin died, I found out that he had known from the start that the cancer was terminal. His sister, a nurse, had learned this, but neither of them had said anything. He hadn't wanted his mother to worry.

It is said that Topaz has the power to improve one's vision.

We were only seven years apart in age, but we were strangers in experience. I avoided drugs because of the fear of addiction, knowing what it's like to crave something to the extent that everything else fades away. I didn't want to be ruled by drugs, but I realize I've allowed other masters to rule my life. Although I never touched the needle, addiction still flows through my veins.

The seventh sacrament, Extreme Unction, or Last Rites, is the believer's baptism into the next world. Through anointing with blessed oil, all is forgiven.