Monthly Archives: November 2010

One Year Ago: Nate’s Exit to Heaven

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People might judge our family to have too keen a focus on Nate’s death, but those of us left behind love to talk about him. Whether it’s the decision about his headstone, the reliving of a memory or a reason to be thankful, all of us are warmed in the process.

Today on the one year anniversary of Nate’s death, nearly 100% of the conversation has been about him, beginning with my children and then through emails, blog comments and snail mail from others. I am a fortunate woman to have so many caring friends, some I’ve known only through cyber space.

Many included comforting Scriptures in their messasges. Nearly all have said they were praying for our family, which I’m sure is the reason it’s been a day of blessing rather than an endurance contest of misery.

One thing mentioned by the kids today is their fresh focus on eternity. We all wonder what’s going on in that supernatural paradise. What is Nate doing? What is he seeing? Who is he talking to? Although we’ve known others who’ve been there for years, it wasn’t until Nate died that we began to seriously ponder the possibilities. Thinking about heaven seems to calm grief the way salve soothes a raw wound.

Hans and Katy’s friend Esther took the time to copy Psalm 121 into her email, the first one I opened this morning:

“[The Lord] who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches… will neither slumber nor sleep. He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.”

These powerful words of promise were a positive way to start the morning. Part of their impact was in knowing they also applied to Nate. I believe the phrase “watching over your coming and going” includes our entering this world, and later exiting from it. God carefully watched over Nate’s life between his “coming” at conception and his “going” at death, right into eternity on November 3, 2009. As Nate arrived there, it became another “coming” monitored by the Lord. Cancer was Satan’s awful idea, but God used it as the vehicle to transport Nate into blissful eternity.

Today all of our children checked in with me. They’re a precious lot, and I don’t deserve the tender kindness they’ve shown. Although we couldn’t all be together, we were one in heart and mind, which greatly enriched this significant milestone.

As the day ended, I went back to Psalm 121, looking it up in Nate’s Bible. Although he didn’t often mark on the words of Scripture, he’d underlined the verses about the Lord watching over him and over his coming and going. Seeing his wavy pen lines on the page made me smile and experience a brief connection to my man.

I needn’t have worried about this important day. In place of tears, God gave us joy… all of us. Especially Nate.

“Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2)

One Year Ago: The Last 24 Hours

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I look back at last year’s calendar with its description of our final day with Nate and shake my head. It was a dreadful yet holy day, a family time set apart like no other. What stands out in my memory?

  • First and foremost, Nate, struggling with pain but then responding well to the morphine drops, liquid relief from the agony of failing organs.
  • Hospice nurses, three in particular: Margarita teaching us how to use atropine to lessen the fluids in Nate’s system; Sonia showing us how to swab his mouth, moisten his lips, cool him with wet cloths and speak soothingly; Dee, spending the night on a stool near Nate, then tenderly bathing him on his last morning.
  • Singing, praying, reading Scripture.
  • Nate finally resting without pain, no knitted brow, no agitation, a relaxed hand as I held it.
  • Family love and gratitude expressed through tearful goodbyes.
  • The Holy Spirit’s presence with us in our dimly lit sanctuary, with Nate in his hospital bed as the centerpiece.
  • Nurse Dee’s comment, “During the night, he looked like he was getting younger and younger.”
  • Nate’s passion to hang on as long as he could, not leaving us until there was no other choice.
  • God and Nate deciding his life had reached its finish line and Nate’s walking into eternity with the Lord.
  • Our aching hearts struggling to believe what had happened, crying, praying, loving.
  • Watching a new nurse officially declare he was gone, released from his earthly body-bondage; listening to her words of comfort as she shared her Christian faith with me.
  • Disposing of Nate’s many drugs with Hospice, grateful he had no further need for them.
  • Watching the funeral home director and his assistant carry Nate out our front door, but being sure the real Nate had left two hours before that.
  • Realizing God had dramatically healed Nate of a very bad back and pancreatic cancer!

Although I’ve thought about these same details a million times during the last 12 months, tonight, for a change, I’m not crying. And I can’t explain it.

Tomorrow might be a different story, but for now, I can walk among the memories and be drawn to the blessings. During this year, God the Father has taught me so much about leaning on him that I’m continually aware of his nearness and can honestly say he’s my most precious Friend.

Today Louisa shared her thoughts about missing her papa, and we agreed there would be many future days when we’ll wish he was with us. Nothing, however, can spoil the unending togetherness we’ll have in eternity. The disconnect is only temporary.

Most likely we’ll never get the answer to her important question, “Why did he have to die when he did?” Instead, through his death, we’ve been given an opportunity to deepen our relationship with God. He had a reason for taking Nate when he did, a good one, and we can choose to trust him on that. Then, as trust increases, we’ll wonder “why” less and less.

In the mean time, we can freely look back, counting on God’s comfort to help us well into the future.

”Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4)

One Year Ago: A photo speaks.

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A picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words. I’ve been drawn back to the photographs from the days when Nate was sick, and the one I’ve posted here has disturbed me greatly. I’ve been tempted to delete it. But after a loved one has died and additional pictures are impossible, deleting in not easy.

Today I studied this frame for a long time, trying to define what disturbs me so. What would a stranger say about it? Would it be equally upsetting to someone who didn’t know us?

Two of the thousand words it would speak to anybody are, “Deathly ill.”

It also shows that this crisis is unfolding in a home where others are healthy, which might be what is so unsettling. Placing healthy so close to terminally ill might be the classic definition of life-is-unfair.

All of us come into life with a definition of fair and unfair, and we bristle at the picture of one person being singled out of many to suffer intensely. There were 13 of us living together at the time this photo was taken, and I don’t recall who had the camera. I only saw the picture for the first time many weeks after Nate had died. But I do remember that as the photo was being taken, I felt warmth and joy in holding onto a vibrant one year old, especially so because a life-and-death war was raging right behind me. So several more of the thousand words this picture could speak would be, “Death is taking, but life is still giving.”

Nate’s face is turned slightly toward Skylar and me. Although none of us saw him move voluntarily during these last days, and although he was sleeping deeply, no matter how we moved him, bathed him or adjusted his pillow, when we looked again, he was turned toward my “station” at the head of his bed.

So I choose to hear the picture say, “Nate is aware of you nearby and comforted by that.” I also hear, “The wait is almost over,” which applies most importantly to his.

There’s something else the photograph says. Because three of us are in the picture, it means ten family members are busy elsewhere. Although Nate didn’t beat his disease, cancer didn’t take the rest of us down, too, which is a credit to the Lord. The devil is all about disease and death, but Jesus always has the final say.

This picture was taken two days before Nate slipped away from the bondage of pain-ridden illness and entered a hale-and-hearty freedom the likes of which no photograph can describe. Although Skylar and I have continued to enjoy earthly health, Nate blew past us, achieving fitness and well-being beyond our understanding. And because of that, there’s one more word the picture says:

TRIUMPH!

“You have delivered me from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.” (Psalm 54:7)