After a long week last March, I was heading out of the office on Friday afternoon when my phone rang.  I already had my coat on and was tempted to let it go to the answering service but my conscience got the better of me.  The person calling was Beryl Orok, chaplain at Warkworth Institute.  She was looking for Dan and the tone of her voice indicated that the matter was urgent.

Dan had been advocating for a compassionate release for Grant M., a man near death who was suffering with COPD .  Grant had been in prison off and on since 1967.  Earlier that day Dan sat frustrated in my office as it appeared that Grant would be sent to Kingston Penitentiary.  I gave Beryl Dan’s cell phone number and decided to wait to see what the urgent news was.

Over the next hour I found out that just before he was to be sent to Kingston Grant was given the compassionate release he so heartily desired.  That meant he was going to be sent by ambulance to PRHC immediately.  Dan invited me to meet Grant at the hospital with him.

Dan and I waited anxiously for hours for Grant to arrive, interrupting our vigil only for a little supper when we realized that Grant’s ambulance was taking longer than originally expected.  A nurse met us in the emergency room and told us that Grant had arrived and that he had been sent directly to palliative care.  Excited, we rushed around the hospital to the palliative care wing, where we met with Grant.

When we walked into the room Grant looked up at Dan with abounding joy.  Imagine Grant’s situation; after years of hard living, prison life and now terminal illness a stranger from Peterborough came into his life and helped him achieve a single but profound wish – that he could die dignified as a free man.  Now, fully aware of how close he had come to being transferred to one of Canada’s most ominous prisons, Grant was in Peterborough surrounded by new friends and the wonderful Palliative Care staff at PRHC.

With his first breath, he gazed at Dan and said with relief “I am so glad that it is all over.”    As the hours passed by Grant’s bedside we prayed together, told stories and talked about the life he would soon be living at the Transition House.  Grant was excited to move into the Transition House, a place where he was sure he would get better treatment than inside a prison, but reiterated continuously that he was not interested in going out or doing many things.  Instead what Grant wanted most for the rest of his life was to have the chance to relax.

Later that night I left for Oshawa, as my fiancé and I were to meet with a priest at our home parish the next day to discuss our upcoming marriage.  As I was having dinner with my family Saturday evening Dan called me and let me know that Grant was not doing very well.  I got in my car to return to Peterborough but before I could even get on the highway Dan called me again to break the hard news that Grant, our new friend and the first palliative release that I have worked on in my short time with PCC, had passed away.

At first I was devastated.  How could it have happened so fast?  Why hadn’t I stayed the day in Peterborough to sit by his bedside a little longer?  But then Grant’s words, guided by Christ whom Grant had thanked so clearly the night before for freedom, came to me as comfort; “I am so glad it is all over.”

Grant was well aware of his own medical condition.  He knew that he did not have much time left in this world.  The act of leaving prison a free man gave him the peace he needed to give up the battle and go softly to the Lord with whom he had surely made peace.

When I arrived at the hospital I was greeted by Dan and Victoria.  I went immediately to Grant’s bedside where I prayed that God would take care of my new friend.  Then I was moved to pick up Grant’s bible.  As I leafed through the pages I noticed that only one passage was marked; John’s third chapter.  In Grant’s translation this chapter was entitled “The New Birth.”

Suddenly the events of the last two days became all the more clear.  God’s gifts of grace and forgiveness are absolutely gratuitous.  There is nothing we can do to earn them.  We can, however, refuse to receive them and shut God out of our lives.  Even though Grant had come to love God with all his heart he felt as though he needed to be a free man physically in order to fully experience the redemptive grace of God’s loving presence, in order to experience a ‘new birth.’  That is why the ministry of Peterborough Community Chaplaincy is so important, because it makes it possible for people who have spent so much of their lives as prisoners both in institutions and in their own hearts to experience the freedom of the love of Christ.

My few hours with Grant have had a profound impact on me.  In Grant I witnessed the Holy Spirit at work in our own ministry.  Grant had lived a life full of sorrow and hardship, a life characterized by bad decisions, mental illness, countless failures and pain caused to others.  Yet as he grew old Grant was able to come to terms with so much of his past, to heal and most of all to know God.  In Grant’s face, as he greeted us, I saw the joy of relief.  In Grant’s face, as he told some of his stories, I saw hurt and anguish.  In Grant’s face, as he spoke with his sister briefly on Friday night, I saw hope.  In Grant’s face I saw the face of Jesus Christ.