Plunged into Family Tragedy

Yesterday I put my husband on a plane, bound for Ukraine with one layover. Then I picked up a friend and went Christmas shopping. We walked up and down the aisles of various stores inspecting the view of many enticing items, trying to pick out the right gifts. We were laughing, soaking in the sparkle of the season, and enjoying the moment.

Suddenly, I received a call from my sister-in-law. The first thing she said, “Sit down.” Then she went on to explain that my father-in-law had just experienced a major stroke. He and my mother-in-law were in an ambulance now heading for the hospital. Before hanging up my sister-in-law said, “Dad is having difficulty breathing, and he doesn’t look good at all.”

I immediately left a message for my husband, who would have a layover in Dulles before boarding a plane for Ukraine. I returned home, praying and crying all the way. I immediately sent out prayer alerts for family and friends. The power of prayer sustains and clarifies the moments of great affliction. With each email I wrote, my heart grew more grateful for the community of believers with whom we have walked for nearly three decades.

My daughter and I joined the family at the hospital. The news was grim. Dad had suffered a major stroke, and he was bleeding in the core of his brain. The recovery from such is less then 5%.

Pastors, dear friends, and family flowed in and out of the emergency room all through the day. The warmth of their strong prayers and support comforted and strengthened us as the hours passed. My husband was intercepted in Washington DC and boarded another plane almost immediately for home. He arrived around 9 PM and joined the rest of the family at the hospital.

All of Papa’s grandchildren came and held his hand. In fact, we all took turns holding his hand, stroking his hair, expressing our love, praying, quoting Scriptures, and weeping. We have prayed for a miracle because we believe in the power of God to heal and restore, yet Dad is 74. This is his fourth stroke in the last five years. We are asking is there a time to release?

The jolt of the moment is paralyzing. It is something one is never prepared to endure. Even as a nurse with many years of nursing experience, the whole scene seemed foreign and surreal to me. What we think we have figured out in black and white is not as clear in the shades of gray experience of the present.

Sitting across from dad in the hospital bed, I pondered the stripping of dignity that comes at the moment when you face death. I thought about Dad in his youth and prime of life–so tall and handsome, so intelligent and educated, so loving and generous to his family. He is always the life of the party with his quick wit and humor–always entertaining his grandchildren with jokes and laughter. He is a wonderful man–really a hero–someone that many admire. Now to see him gasping for air, struggling, thrashing, hanging onto dimming sparks of life with failing strength.

I also pondered my mother-in-law trying to say good-bye and yet filling herself with hope in turns–struggling to fully comprehend. God’s grace rested on her so completely and beautifully. I saw the dread and disbelief in my husband’s eyes, and the fear in my daughter’s eyes. How frail each one of us is in this tragedy.

Yet amidst this, a deep joy bubbled up in my heart with the knowledge, the deep assurance that dad is prepared for his home in heaven and will go there when it is time.

We all take comfort in the truth that we will not mourn as those who have no hope, yet this is hard, really hard.

There is a sense of overwhelming peace in his room.

Here we stand looking death squarely in the eye with no human weapon that can quell its rancor. Here we are grappling with our humanity, crying out for mercy, dreading the tearing, despising the parting; here we are… asking God for another pathway, here we are…

How do we reduce the story of a beloved life, a meaningful life, a treasured life–full of days–to one last sentence, to the last period?