In Memoriam: Cristi Ciouca, a Soul in Triumph

Oh, Emanuel Hospice. Sad days, very sad. Glorious days, very glorious.

Because at 1.45 on Tuesday morning, hospice nurse Dana Ciouca lost her husband to liver cancer. It’s always a shock when the dreaded illness leaps the fence from patients into family. And to say that the last two years have been arduous, and the funeral yesterday heartbreaking, well, that’s to trade in understatements.

Now here they are, a mother, a daughter, two sons. Alone. A family defined by absence.

If yesterday we from Romanian Ministries in UK homes were sad, how was it at the graveside?

Surely Christians without sorrow at such times are Christians without feeling, and that’s no Christ-like path?

So, sadness, yes. But also glory. How?

Well, oddly enough, it stems from a film review I read recently. By way of contrast. It was about We Live in Time, a rom-com with tragic overtones when the heroine ultimately dies of cancer.

I’ve not seen it. But the journalist was raging about the film’s soft-focus, beautified journey. This, she claimed, was not reality. Apparently she had cared for three close relatives or friends in their final days. And her observation had been that it was more akin to a violent ravaging, each time, totally bereft of redeeming features.

Well, naturally very sorry to hear that.

But I can personally testify that this was not true of dear Cristi Ciouca.

I met him in November 2024. It was surprise visit, sprung on me by my blessedly unpredictable friend and brother, Dr Beni Paul. I was a guest inside the Ciouca apartment before I knew it.

Dana was there, with two of her boys, and also Cristi. Now, a pleasant physical description of this dear man, well, it’s simply not possible. His skin was dark yellow. And I mean dark. The frame was skeletal. Natural vigour was gone. And there was that inexplicable sense, felt so often when visiting terminal patients, of the presence of death. Palpable.

BUT THAT WAS NOT ALL. Transcending all natural negatives was a colossal spiritual victory. You really had to be blind to miss it. The most obvious thing in this room? A man at peace. Conversing over half an hour, here was acceptance of God’s will. Here was gratitude for treatment received. A steady focus on Christ. Hope. Anticipation. A lifting of the veil to see beyond mortality, and a grasp, a lively apprehension, of things above.

It was slightly unnerving, to be honest. But in a most wonderful way. Death was a stingless beast. It was all Christus Victor. Personally manifested in this precious, precious, afflicted soul. And as we exited onto the street below, it was with a sense of being able to face anything in life, if faced in Him.

Totally bereft of redeeming features? How about totally saturated by redeeming grace?

Do you fear death? Secretly? At night, before sleeping? Well, learn from Cristi Ciouca, look to Christ, repent of sin, follow Him, and rest well.

Our prayers and thoughts remain with Dana, her family and the hospice team.