GOD IS THAT REAL
Twenty five years ago on Christmas Eve 1986 my mother entered eternal life. That phrase is hard to conceive through anything but faith; faith and the subtle signs that surrounded that occassion.
One day as I was at what would shortly be her deathbed she, though she had a trach, (a tube inserted in her neck, below her chin) was able to convey to me that her father, dead since 1942, was in the corner of her ICU cubicle. I didn’t see him or feel his presence so I was certain she was hallucinating due to high levels of pain meds, what else would any reasonable person assume. (Yes, at times even I could be reasonable!)
Then, just a few short weeks later, after her funeral when we received her cremated earthly remains, a day before the new year of 1987, dad placed the box entitled Theresa Maria Pierce on his bedroom dresser. After he turned off the lights, tucked himself in to the bed he and mom had shared for thirty years and closed his eyes music filled the room. Dad had to hunt down the source of the music which was a new year’s card tucked under layers of bed sheets in the same dresser mom was resting in peace on top of! The card was years old and had apparently resided there since it had been received, quietly and unknown to dad. It was closed! Those cards only play when opened. Dad had to destroy the card to make it quit its serenade of “Have A Happy New Year”. “Have a happy New Year”, what a perfect song to play at the precise time. Could there be any room for a coincidence there? Someone, or something, was trying to communicate with Dad that everything was alright! That things were under control.
Well, needless to say those little events had an impact on me that I never got over. Never. They brought unquestionable reassurance to me that Mom was home, home with her family and the risen Lord. And that just possibly her father had come to reassure her that things would be alright while she lay dying, and to be her escort to heaven, just in case it’s possible to get lost heading straight up: Mom never could follow directions. (Don’t say it, I know I can’t follow directions either, obviously I come by it naturally).
It wasn’t long, in eternal terms, after mom left us that dad became sick…sicker. He had had heart issues for years, now at 66 he had head and cancer. After a lengthy surgery of 12 hours to remove most of his tongue and neck lymph nodes he entered twenty years of a foodless existence, nourished only by a feeding tube, never to taste his favorite dishes again forcing me to eat foods in his sight so he could live vicariously through me (sometimes this was done without much coaxing, really I should have fought harder!)
Now fast forward through twenty years of health issues for my dad. Congestive heart failure, feeding tube difficulties, broken hips, hands, shoulders, unexpected falls, depression, death of other family members, loss of friends and honored pets, COPD etc.…etc. I was at dad’s house constantly monitoring him for any setbacks that needed to be rewound and set forward. I was perpetually being praised for being such a devoted and loyal daughter continuously helping him to dodge the bullet but I always threw the credit back where it belonged; with God. I couldn’t keep him alive by myself! I couldn’t keep him alive at all, that wasn’t in my power.
My constant prayers over the years were; one, that he get back in church so he could receive communion again; two, that he live till the rapture, or; three, that if it wasn’t in the cards for him to live to the rapture for me to present when he died so I could see my mom come for him; and four, that he die peacefully, painlessly.
Two years ago, thanks to my son joining Dad’s old church, Dad started going to all the Friday night casual contemporary church services he felt up to attending. Taking into account dad never left the house after 5:30 if he could avoid it (even though he seldom went to bed before midnight) this appeared to be prayer number one getting its due consideration. Here he received communion by people who didn’t care he couldn’t swallow the body and blood of Christ (all he could do was touch the sacraments to his lips), worshipped regularly with his family and met the wonderful pastor who would perform his funeral service which was a considerable load off my mind. It was reassuring to know that his service would be performed by someone that actually knew him and not some random stranger.
Now we’re up to the emergency room where he arrived by ambulance after what appeared to be a stroke but turned out to be seizures precipitated by low sodium secondary to dehydration caused by a faulty feeding tube. His first concern is not that he gave me the scare of my live (again) but that he smelled something inexplicable to him. I asked what it smelled like and he told me “perfume”. That didn’t seem odd considering the bevy of young, gorgeous nurse/models gathered about him arranging tubes and lines necessary for medical care. However none of them fessed up to being scented by anything but soap, even the male nurses denied wearing after shave. I looked about the room for signs of something terrestrial; you know …pale wispy apparitions floating in the air or fluttering their wings. I saw, felt or smelled nothing. Dad’s next point of interest was the appearance of his dirty feet sticking out from the light sheet tossed over him. His feet were always dirty, he frequently reminded me of Pig Pen, the Charlie Brown character who had dirt hovering continuously over him. I washed his feet for him; as it turned out, for the last time. He needed to look presentable if mom was around, he shouldn’t feel ashamed of his feet, and he wanted to look his best for her after twenty five years of separation. I hoped this wasn’t prayer number three being answered. I preferred to believe it was just a comforting visit.
I went home that night bolstered by the doctor’s report that everything dad had was treatable; he just needed to be admitted so he could get stabilized, rehydrated. And why should I worry, mom was there to keep him company.
I called Dad’s nurses the next morning before my feet hit the floor. “Everything was fine”, they said. He had been up for some time talking to them and responding appropriately to whatever was going on. On the basis of this information I decided to go to Sunday school before heading to the hospital.
I arrived in the hospital parking lot in time to meet my kids leaving. They passed on the message that dad didn’t want his reading glasses or any of the books they had brought over for him because he wasn’t coming home to the house he shared with them again. Well, you can just imagine how many times I’ve fought that battle with Dad before, I could handle it again. Just let him divulge that information to me, I’d kick that damn old self-pity ass off of him one more time!
I was in his room for less than thirty minutes fluffing his pillows, opening the blinds, straightening his bedside table, chattering about nothing in particular waiting for him to discuss dying. He never brought the subject up. He did however ask for some ice water to rinse out his dry mouth which I handed him along with the requisite empty cup to spit in. He didn’t spit, nor did he sputter convulsively like he did when he accidently swallowed anything. What he did do was lay his head down on the pillow and close his eyes. I watched him fall asleep, slowly and peacefully. Painlessly. I watched his lips turn dusky, then blue. What prayer number was that?
Dad died on Sunday at 11:30. Sunday, the day Christians worship as the time Jesus rose from the dead was now the day my dad rose from his death bed. Every Sunday at 11:30 I’ll remember this moment.
Of course when the nurses discovered what was happening they rushed into the room calling all kinds of codes and I had to inform them that dad was a DNR. The words choked me because I wanted to bring him back to tell him one more time how much I loved him. One more time? I never told him. Not in words, and neither had he ever told me; not in words, he spoke with jewelry, my favorite language. I wanted to bring him back to see if he really meant that he wanted to die; I wanted to give him a chance to revoke his living will. But I didn’t because I was afraid he’d get mad at me for not following his directions.(I mentioned once I don’t follow directions well, didn’t ?)
I found myself on my knees holding his hands, calling out to him to come back. Crying. Sobbing. Did I say painlessly? Well it was painless for him. I had to make phone calls. Pass on information. I chose Facebook as a quick one size fits all solution. I could hear dad’s comments on that. He hated my cell phone and it’s intrusion into human lives, not to mention all the gadgets on it that had frequently diverted my attention from him.
I took his glasses and Lifeline necklace off, placing the necklace around my own neck where it would stay for a few weeks and waited hours for the funeral home to come for his body. This is the first trip in years that dad made without me or his walker.
I finally, miraculously, made it safely home to his house to greet the minister who came to pay his condolences. Then there was the gathering of mementos I wanted before they got lost in the shuffle, his bible and current guidepost devotional, a pair of praying hands he had made in crafts class, together with a prayer bracelet, some devotional books and war souvenirs…er …metals.
The next morning my daughter in law called to tell me her daily quiet time had been about the good and faithful servant and that she was certain that God’s first words to dad when he arrived at the Throne of Grace were, “Well done my good and faithful servant,” because of all he had done for her, the rest of his family and friends and all the charities he had sponsored. I liked that sentiment so much I included it in Dad’s obituary along with some sentiments my sister in law had made about dad being a trooper and always in good spirits regardless of his health issues.
Then there were the pictures I found of dad I had taken at the Christian arts museum in front of a life size replication of the Lord’s last supper. There dad stood with his walker, right in front of Jesus and his disciples as they ate, looking like he was at the actual event. I placed that picture in my kitchen table’s center piece to help remind me that Dad was now in a better place. (By the way, that expression doesn’t always bring the comfort it’s intended to bring.) I posted the picture in Facebook with the subtitle, “Attention, this just in, Dad’s eating at a banquet in heaven.” Another Facebook encounter that would have made dad grimace!
The next four days to his funeral were muddled. Talk about taking one day at a time, I had difficulties taking one second at a time. It’s hard to feel and act brave when you just want to crawl in a hole and cry till you make a pond big enough to drown in. The only way I could get to sleep at night was by reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over and ……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,
On the morning of Dad’s funeral, looking for some serenity, I reached for his Senior’s Devotional Bible that was still sitting on my end table. Not knowing where I wanted to go I let the book fall open on its own. Now hold on to your rose colored glasses, the passage that greeted me was entitled, “Well Done, Faithful Servant!” Right there on page 1196 in large hard to miss red letters. Yep, the same theme my daughter in law inspired for his obituary. I was being spoken to by God himself. I was being compelled to accept that dad had run a good long fight and now it was his turn to enjoy life; real life, life that included eating (again after twenty years of abstinence ) at the King’s table.
A few days later, while I was still mourning the loss of my dear old dad, one of his Navy buddies called and related a war story about him during WW11. Apparently dad, at the age of nineteen or so, and another comrade were in the ship hold of LST-999 moving some ammunition around when an enormous garbage pail sized bomb went off in their faces blowing them across the room (or whatever the bottom compartment of a large LST is referred to as). He and that other man should have been killed per the opinion of dad’s buddy but both survived and spent only a week on a hospital ship before returning to their duties. Dad’s live could have ended before it had begun, he could have been just another war casuality! I could have been born to someone else and never known my dad. That notion reminded me of the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life,” where Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey, a man given a chance to see how life would have been different without him. God had given dad and extra sixty five or so years to become a Faithful Servant and improve the lives of many people.
So let’s recap. Dad could have left this earth sixty five years ago, and I’d never have known him, and of my four prayers, three were answered. Now, wait a minute, prayers two and three were either/or prepositions so really they were all answered! When I related this story complete with all its little coincidences to a friend at work his gloriously enthusiastic response was, “Wow, God is that real!” How right he was. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to Dad’s live. Oh wait, I did!
Oh, ready for one more fluke? Dad’s cremated remains rest above the remains of …hold on to your chair…a George Bailey! What a way to confirm to my distressed soul that dad has entered a new wonderful life! How many happenstances does it take to convince people that God is that real!
Twenty five years ago on Christmas Eve 1986 my mother entered eternal life. That phrase is hard to conceive through anything but faith; faith and the subtle signs that surrounded that occassion.
One day as I was at what would shortly be her deathbed she, though she had a trach, (a tube inserted in her neck, below her chin) was able to convey to me that her father, dead since 1942, was in the corner of her ICU cubicle. I didn’t see him or feel his presence so I was certain she was hallucinating due to high levels of pain meds, what else would any reasonable person assume. (Yes, at times even I could be reasonable!)
Then, just a few short weeks later, after her funeral when we received her cremated earthly remains, a day before the new year of 1987, dad placed the box entitled Theresa Maria Pierce on his bedroom dresser. After he turned off the lights, tucked himself in to the bed he and mom had shared for thirty years and closed his eyes music filled the room. Dad had to hunt down the source of the music which was a new year’s card tucked under layers of bed sheets in the same dresser mom was resting in peace on top of! The card was years old and had apparently resided there since it had been received, quietly and unknown to dad. It was closed! Those cards only play when opened. Dad had to destroy the card to make it quit its serenade of “Have A Happy New Year”. “Have a happy New Year”, what a perfect song to play at the precise time. Could there be any room for a coincidence there? Someone, or something, was trying to communicate with Dad that everything was alright! That things were under control.
Well, needless to say those little events had an impact on me that I never got over. Never. They brought unquestionable reassurance to me that Mom was home, home with her family and the risen Lord. And that just possibly her father had come to reassure her that things would be alright while she lay dying, and to be her escort to heaven, just in case it’s possible to get lost heading straight up: Mom never could follow directions. (Don’t say it, I know I can’t follow directions either, obviously I come by it naturally).
It wasn’t long, in eternal terms, after mom left us that dad became sick…sicker. He had had heart issues for years, now at 66 he had head and cancer. After a lengthy surgery of 12 hours to remove most of his tongue and neck lymph nodes he entered twenty years of a foodless existence, nourished only by a feeding tube, never to taste his favorite dishes again forcing me to eat foods in his sight so he could live vicariously through me (sometimes this was done without much coaxing, really I should have fought harder!)
Now fast forward through twenty years of health issues for my dad. Congestive heart failure, feeding tube difficulties, broken hips, hands, shoulders, unexpected falls, depression, death of other family members, loss of friends and honored pets, COPD etc.…etc. I was at dad’s house constantly monitoring him for any setbacks that needed to be rewound and set forward. I was perpetually being praised for being such a devoted and loyal daughter continuously helping him to dodge the bullet but I always threw the credit back where it belonged; with God. I couldn’t keep him alive by myself! I couldn’t keep him alive at all, that wasn’t in my power.
My constant prayers over the years were; one, that he get back in church so he could receive communion again; two, that he live till the rapture, or; three, that if it wasn’t in the cards for him to live to the rapture for me to present when he died so I could see my mom come for him; and four, that he die peacefully, painlessly.
Two years ago, thanks to my son joining Dad’s old church, Dad started going to all the Friday night casual contemporary church services he felt up to attending. Taking into account dad never left the house after 5:30 if he could avoid it (even though he seldom went to bed before midnight) this appeared to be prayer number one getting its due consideration. Here he received communion by people who didn’t care he couldn’t swallow the body and blood of Christ (all he could do was touch the sacraments to his lips), worshipped regularly with his family and met the wonderful pastor who would perform his funeral service which was a considerable load off my mind. It was reassuring to know that his service would be performed by someone that actually knew him and not some random stranger.
Now we’re up to the emergency room where he arrived by ambulance after what appeared to be a stroke but turned out to be seizures precipitated by low sodium secondary to dehydration caused by a faulty feeding tube. His first concern is not that he gave me the scare of my live (again) but that he smelled something inexplicable to him. I asked what it smelled like and he told me “perfume”. That didn’t seem odd considering the bevy of young, gorgeous nurse/models gathered about him arranging tubes and lines necessary for medical care. However none of them fessed up to being scented by anything but soap, even the male nurses denied wearing after shave. I looked about the room for signs of something terrestrial; you know …pale wispy apparitions floating in the air or fluttering their wings. I saw, felt or smelled nothing. Dad’s next point of interest was the appearance of his dirty feet sticking out from the light sheet tossed over him. His feet were always dirty, he frequently reminded me of Pig Pen, the Charlie Brown character who had dirt hovering continuously over him. I washed his feet for him; as it turned out, for the last time. He needed to look presentable if mom was around, he shouldn’t feel ashamed of his feet, and he wanted to look his best for her after twenty five years of separation. I hoped this wasn’t prayer number three being answered. I preferred to believe it was just a comforting visit.
I went home that night bolstered by the doctor’s report that everything dad had was treatable; he just needed to be admitted so he could get stabilized, rehydrated. And why should I worry, mom was there to keep him company.
I called Dad’s nurses the next morning before my feet hit the floor. “Everything was fine”, they said. He had been up for some time talking to them and responding appropriately to whatever was going on. On the basis of this information I decided to go to Sunday school before heading to the hospital.
I arrived in the hospital parking lot in time to meet my kids leaving. They passed on the message that dad didn’t want his reading glasses or any of the books they had brought over for him because he wasn’t coming home to the house he shared with them again. Well, you can just imagine how many times I’ve fought that battle with Dad before, I could handle it again. Just let him divulge that information to me, I’d kick that damn old self-pity ass off of him one more time!
I was in his room for less than thirty minutes fluffing his pillows, opening the blinds, straightening his bedside table, chattering about nothing in particular waiting for him to discuss dying. He never brought the subject up. He did however ask for some ice water to rinse out his dry mouth which I handed him along with the requisite empty cup to spit in. He didn’t spit, nor did he sputter convulsively like he did when he accidently swallowed anything. What he did do was lay his head down on the pillow and close his eyes. I watched him fall asleep, slowly and peacefully. Painlessly. I watched his lips turn dusky, then blue. What prayer number was that?
Dad died on Sunday at 11:30. Sunday, the day Christians worship as the time Jesus rose from the dead was now the day my dad rose from his death bed. Every Sunday at 11:30 I’ll remember this moment.
Of course when the nurses discovered what was happening they rushed into the room calling all kinds of codes and I had to inform them that dad was a DNR. The words choked me because I wanted to bring him back to tell him one more time how much I loved him. One more time? I never told him. Not in words, and neither had he ever told me; not in words, he spoke with jewelry, my favorite language. I wanted to bring him back to see if he really meant that he wanted to die; I wanted to give him a chance to revoke his living will. But I didn’t because I was afraid he’d get mad at me for not following his directions.(I mentioned once I don’t follow directions well, didn’t ?)
I found myself on my knees holding his hands, calling out to him to come back. Crying. Sobbing. Did I say painlessly? Well it was painless for him. I had to make phone calls. Pass on information. I chose Facebook as a quick one size fits all solution. I could hear dad’s comments on that. He hated my cell phone and it’s intrusion into human lives, not to mention all the gadgets on it that had frequently diverted my attention from him.
I took his glasses and Lifeline necklace off, placing the necklace around my own neck where it would stay for a few weeks and waited hours for the funeral home to come for his body. This is the first trip in years that dad made without me or his walker.
I finally, miraculously, made it safely home to his house to greet the minister who came to pay his condolences. Then there was the gathering of mementos I wanted before they got lost in the shuffle, his bible and current guidepost devotional, a pair of praying hands he had made in crafts class, together with a prayer bracelet, some devotional books and war souvenirs…er …metals.
The next morning my daughter in law called to tell me her daily quiet time had been about the good and faithful servant and that she was certain that God’s first words to dad when he arrived at the Throne of Grace were, “Well done my good and faithful servant,” because of all he had done for her, the rest of his family and friends and all the charities he had sponsored. I liked that sentiment so much I included it in Dad’s obituary along with some sentiments my sister in law had made about dad being a trooper and always in good spirits regardless of his health issues.
Then there were the pictures I found of dad I had taken at the Christian arts museum in front of a life size replication of the Lord’s last supper. There dad stood with his walker, right in front of Jesus and his disciples as they ate, looking like he was at the actual event. I placed that picture in my kitchen table’s center piece to help remind me that Dad was now in a better place. (By the way, that expression doesn’t always bring the comfort it’s intended to bring.) I posted the picture in Facebook with the subtitle, “Attention, this just in, Dad’s eating at a banquet in heaven.” Another Facebook encounter that would have made dad grimace!
The next four days to his funeral were muddled. Talk about taking one day at a time, I had difficulties taking one second at a time. It’s hard to feel and act brave when you just want to crawl in a hole and cry till you make a pond big enough to drown in. The only way I could get to sleep at night was by reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over and ……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz,
On the morning of Dad’s funeral, looking for some serenity, I reached for his Senior’s Devotional Bible that was still sitting on my end table. Not knowing where I wanted to go I let the book fall open on its own. Now hold on to your rose colored glasses, the passage that greeted me was entitled, “Well Done, Faithful Servant!” Right there on page 1196 in large hard to miss red letters. Yep, the same theme my daughter in law inspired for his obituary. I was being spoken to by God himself. I was being compelled to accept that dad had run a good long fight and now it was his turn to enjoy life; real life, life that included eating (again after twenty years of abstinence ) at the King’s table.
A few days later, while I was still mourning the loss of my dear old dad, one of his Navy buddies called and related a war story about him during WW11. Apparently dad, at the age of nineteen or so, and another comrade were in the ship hold of LST-999 moving some ammunition around when an enormous garbage pail sized bomb went off in their faces blowing them across the room (or whatever the bottom compartment of a large LST is referred to as). He and that other man should have been killed per the opinion of dad’s buddy but both survived and spent only a week on a hospital ship before returning to their duties. Dad’s live could have ended before it had begun, he could have been just another war casuality! I could have been born to someone else and never known my dad. That notion reminded me of the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life,” where Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey, a man given a chance to see how life would have been different without him. God had given dad and extra sixty five or so years to become a Faithful Servant and improve the lives of many people.
So let’s recap. Dad could have left this earth sixty five years ago, and I’d never have known him, and of my four prayers, three were answered. Now, wait a minute, prayers two and three were either/or prepositions so really they were all answered! When I related this story complete with all its little coincidences to a friend at work his gloriously enthusiastic response was, “Wow, God is that real!” How right he was. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to Dad’s live. Oh wait, I did!
Oh, ready for one more fluke? Dad’s cremated remains rest above the remains of …hold on to your chair…a George Bailey! What a way to confirm to my distressed soul that dad has entered a new wonderful life! How many happenstances does it take to convince people that God is that real!
