Easter Miracle

부활절과 유월절(passover)이 겹치는 주말입니다. 일 년 중 가장 긴  연휴(long weekend)를 맞아 금요일부터 월요일까지 4일간 휴무에 들어갑니다. 이 기간 동안에는 관공서나 회사 은행은 물론이고 대부분의 가게들이 문을 닫습니다.

이번 주 일요일에 천주교와 기독교에서는 부활절로 지킵니다. 성 금요일에 십자가에 달려 돌아가신 예수가 이틀이 지난 후 무덤에서 다시 살아난 사실을 기념하는 날이 부활절이지요.

이집트에서의 노예생활을 하던 유대인들이 대 탈출을 감행한 날이 유월절입니다. 유대교 최대의 명절이지요. 이집트를 탈출하던 날 첫 번째 소생은 모두 죽게 되나 양의 피를 문기둥에 바른 가정은 죽음을 면하지요. 사는 동네가 유대인 커뮤니티여서 유월절을 즐기는 사람들의 모습을 보는 건 흔한 일입니다.  

긴 겨울 지내고 만물이 소생하는 봄입니다. 잔설이 남아있지만 곳곳에서 잔디가 파릇파릇 돋아나고 있습니다. 나뭇가지는 새싹을 피어 올릴 준비로 바쁩니다. 새들의 지저귐이 유난한 건 사랑을 나눌 짝이 있기 때문이겠지요. 둥지에서 새로운 생명의 탄생을 볼 날도 머지않았습니다.

움츠렸던 가지며 얼어붙었던 대지가 꿈틀거리는 모습을 보는 건 기쁨입니다. 새들의 지저귐 속에 새 생명의 탄생을 기대하는 건 축복입니다. 살아있음의 증거입니다.

태어난 지 두 달 된 예쁜 딸이 삶과 죽음의 기로에 있습니다. 산소 호흡기를 떼면 생명을 잃게 될 것이라고 말합니다. 딸의 부모는 산소 호흡기를 제거할 결정을 합니다. 자식의 죽음을 보아야 하는 것보다 더한 고통은 없을 것입니다.

생후 한 달 된 아기가 같은 병원에 입원해 있습니다. 누군가로부터 심장을 기증받아 교체하지 않으면 곧 죽게 됩니다. 심장을 기증해줄 누군가를 간절히 기다립니다.     

한 아기의 죽음이 다른 아기의 생명을 살릴 수 있다면 기적일 것입니다. 죽어가는 아이의 부모는 아이가 죽으면 심장을 기증하리라 결심하였습니다.  말할 수 없는 슬픔 가운데 산소 호흡기는 제거 되었습니다. 한 생명의 죽음이 다른 생명을 살릴 수 있을 것이라 믿었습니다. 바로 숨을 거둘 것으로 예상하였던 아기는 놀랍게도 스스로 호흡하며 싸움을 계속합니다.

심장을 기증받으리라 여겼던 아기는 초조한 기다림을 계속하고 있습니다. 이 무슨 기구한 운명의 장난입니까. 두 아이가 생명을 모두 건질 수 있는 기적은 진정 없는 건가요? 이 소생의 계절에.

<Easter miracle>

Easter came early last year. Most of the country was coming out of a deep cold. And my 19-year-old sister had just died because of a misdiagnosis at a medical clinic.

From her bed in Victoria, where she lived on her own to go to college, she text-messaged my father in Saskatoon saying, "I'm scared." My mother booked a flight to go see her, not because she thought my little sister was in serious danger, but to be there for her. No one knew it, not my parents and certainly not the clinic that treated her hours before her death, but her lungs were filling up. She had undiagnosed pneumonia and died suddenly, with no goodbyes.

Rachel came fifth in a family of seven siblings, the youngest of three daughters. I was nine when she was born, old enough to hold her on my hip. That was only part of our dynamic, though. She had achieved such grace and level-headedness by her mid-teens that I, an adult, didn't know whether to baby her or to ask her for advice. When I'd tell her of something needlessly dramatic I'd done, she would laugh out loud, her eyes bright with incredulous amusement.

She was a great kid. Just having emerged from her gawky high-school years (complete with braces), she didn't know how pretty she was. As a child, she kept a tidy bedroom in a rambunctious household and got straight As in school. I once found her kneeling at her bedside. She earnestly read books like Attitudes of Gratitude. The kids she babysat across the street would peer out their front window when she was coming over and squeal, "Rachel's coming! Rachel's coming!"

 She was that kind of girl. Promising, and at the age of 19, in bloom.

And then in an hour it turned into a horror show. Running out the door of a coffee shop and down the street whimpering when I guessed the news from an urgent e-mail. Shopping for a brand-new white Lululemon hoodie for Rachel to wear in her casket. Waiting in Saskatoon for her body to arrive in cargo from Victoria. Touching my sister's hairline for the last time, the only part of her body that reminded me of her. Her face was a mask of hideous brown makeup: a stranger's face. What I was touching was a corpse.

From dust to dust.

My mother, a devout Catholic, has arguments about Christianity with her children all the time. We usually tell her we believe in Christian values, but that's it. We believe in the golden rule: Love others as you love yourself. We'll even concede that Jesus can be seen in the face of a stranger. A junkie sleeping on a grate on the sidewalk, Pope John Paul II: Their souls have the same value in the eyes of God. You have been made in God's image. Your soul is worth more than all the dollars in the world.

But my mom always tells us that Christianity is more than that. Atheists believe in the golden rule too. What you need is a personal relationship with Christ.

Saying things like that makes people cringe, especially teenagers, even more so your kids. But I think last March I went and fulfilled my mother's prophecy. The meaning of Easter pierced my newly vulnerable heart with its miraculous promise. Everything else was clouded with grief, yet I found myself focusing my tired eyes on that hope.

I went to Easter mass alone in Toronto, across the country from the rest of my family, to be surrounded with what churchgoing people are called to celebrate at Easter: hope. Heaven. Turning our minds to that myth or that miracle: that God would suffer a mortal death and, in so doing, open up the doors to life after death for us.

Before Rachel died, Easter had never taken for me. Jesus was waiting for me in heaven?

Then one day it changes. Suddenly heaven has a face, Rachel's face, and I need it. Easter celebrates that what's finite and what's infinite intersect, that there's life on Earth and there's life outside of it. Easter is an annual celebration for a reason: so that we're constantly aware that our earthly existence is insignificant compared to what awaits us. The entire church season pounds this into our consciousness.

When I stood in the congregation at Easter mass, I could think only two things: "Rachel" and "heaven." I thought of seeing Rachel's sweet face again, and it was like a hand ran over my heart. The idea of heaven came to me stronger than I could ever have expected.

I have survived my first awful year without my little sister. That sliver of hope for heaven that I felt at the Easter service has often evaded me, but I'll tell you something: It has meant more to me than hugs, cards, flowers, human kindness, the compassion of employers and certainly the notion that Rachel will "live on in memories."

Easter. Spring. It's a time of hope. Millions of Canadians are celebrating hope this weekend. And as a cradle Catholic, I am perhaps for the first time experiencing the true consolation of my religion.

Alana Trumpy lives in Toronto.

(From Friday's Globe and Mail. April 10, 2009)