Love Must Go Forth

“Do you know what hurts so very much? It's love. Love is the strongest force in the world, and when it is blocked that means pain. There are two things we can do when this happens. We can kill that love so that it stops hurting. But then of course part of us dies, too. Or we can ask God to open up another route for that love to travel.”

-Corrie Ten Boom

Just when I thought a potentially cancerous tumor was the biggest of my Christmas concerns, we got the word that my beloved father was airlifted to the nearest hospital due to another heart attack. 16 years ago, he experienced what they call the “widow maker,” where the major artery to the heart gets blocked.  This blockage often results in death—but God got him through that harrowing experience, despite having to be revived in the operating room.  There have been so many close calls with Dad–including a motorcycle accident, compartment syndrome, and severe bouts of pneumonia. But by God’s grace, he’s always pulled through. It’s true—the Lord has had his hand on my Dad’s life for years.

But this time, things felt different.  As a family, we all felt a sense of urgency to get down south where he was living and be with him.  Dad had a way of hiding his pain, in similar fashion to a wounded animal, and we weren’t entirely sure that this particular scenario wasn’t worse than he was letting on to.  He wasn’t dishonest–he just never wanted to be a burden to anyone.  

Mom and I grabbed a last minute flight out of town.  We left home at 3pm and finally touched down after 10+ hours of travel to our final destination:  dad’s hospital room.  Number 6119 to be exact.  That number will forever be burned in my memory.  The nurse on call was called “Cody.”  Nice guy.

Dad’s room was dimly lit, with my brother and sister and a couple of his friends present.  He seemed in good spirits–even joking a bit.  Typical.  The incessant beeps on the IV stands drove me nutty, but I was just glad to finally be there, holding his hand.  

“Hi Dad!”  I said through tears. “How are you?”

“Oh I’m fine.  You haven’t called me!”

“I know Dad, I’m sorry.  It’s been a harder season for me.” 

My own tears were undeniable now, as I witnessed his fragile frame—once so trustworthy and dependable.  Plus, the guilt in my heart began to well up, as the reality of my own reclusive tendencies in grief became evident.  Despite the last few months of my own personal sufferings, I should have called him more.  

“Are you going to be ok?” he said, tears welling up in his eyes.

“I don’t know, Dad.” I said, honestly.

We both cried.  I hugged him.  And he hugged me.  

He was stable and in good enough spirits that my family and I felt confident enough to go back to our hotel room just down the street.  We all needed rest after a full day of last-minute, cross-country travel–but little did we know just how much we would need that rest in the days to come.

It was Tuesday morning, 17 December 2024, and my mom, brother, sister, and I were all semi-refreshed and ready to go spend the day with Dad in the hospital.  Surely there would be a solution to help him recover from the damage of yet another heart attack.  At only 78, we all felt fairly confident of his recovery

Into room 6119 we went, and our beloved patient was not nearly as peppy as he had been the night prior.  The nurse said he had a bad night with very little sleep.  With his condition–(congestive heart failure) breathing is difficult, which therefore makes sleep difficult.  Add to that, the chest pains, and you have a recipe for a disastrous and sleepless night.  He was on two IVs that helped to stabilize his heart, but those drips weren’t long term solutions, by any means.  The doctor said a few different surgical procedures were possible, but that the chances of his survival on the operating table were very low. His first heart attack had caused major damage to his heart—leading to a terribly leaky valve and a heart that had doubled in size.  

His heart doubling in size felt symbolic.

By midday, in agony–Dad was saying he just wanted to go.  He didn’t want the IV drips anymore, he didn’t want the surgery, and he just wanted to let “nature take its course,” as it were.  The doctor was clear that if they stopped the IVs, he wouldn’t have long–to which, he consented.  As a family, we gathered round his bedside and had what I would consider a holy moment.

“How long has it been since we’ve all been together, just the 5 of us in one room?” Dad asked.

Perhaps it’s obvious, but our original family unit was broken up to this point—and Dad’s question pointed to the stark reality of the shattered relationships and failures that existed within our familial dynamic for years.  Ultimately, Dad left once we had all grown up, and had a hard time letting down his pride to ask for forgiveness and seek out restoration.  I believe the failures and losses were crushing to him, and he over-complicated the simplicity of unity. But I don’t blame him for that.  I’m not convinced that his life up to this point had been transformed by the ultimate love and forgiveness found soley in Christ Jesus. That love will forever change a person from the inside out.  

At this point in the day, we knew he wouldn’t make it.  The docs told us as much, and that was what he wanted.  He wanted off the life-sustaining drugs, and he wanted to go.  But where are you going, Dad?  That was my biggest concern.

For years, I have been pleading with the God of Heaven to “please save my father before he dies.”  Besides the prayer for another child, this has been my most consistent plea before the Father.  In the last 6 months, I could barely get the words out without sobbing my eyes out.  

But when the moment hit—where we knew death was imminent, I felt too weak, too fraught with grief, to ask about his soul.  I just prayed quietly to myself that God would open Dad’s eyes and save him during his last painful hours on earth. That’s when my attentive younger brother stepped in.

“Dad, is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?” he asked.

“Yeah, He is.” Dad said.

“Can I hear you confess that with your mouth, Dad?”

“Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” Dad said with a pant, “and I’m following Him!”

You can be sure there were tears all around.  During these final moments—where Dad verbally confessed Christ as his Lord–we also wept over the lost years, and told him how proud we were to call him our Dad.  

“You were so awesome, Dad—the best anyone could have ever dreamed of,” I wept.

“I was only awesome because of you guys,” he said, crying.

This moment in time felt surreal.  My Dad, whom I have known my entire life–stood on the brink of eternity now.  The man once who felt so strong, so dependable, so capable–was now weak, tired, and for once, not in the captain’s seat.  It dawned on me then, that control of any kind is a complete and total façade.  Especially in death—we surrender to the reality that our bodies and souls do not belong to us, ultimately.  In essence, this was a most humbling and life-changing experience to see death so close to someone I loved so intimately, and to see control removed from someone that seemingly always possessed it.

The heart-sustaining IVs were removed at around 6pm and were instead replaced by pain medications so that Dad would die “without pain.”  This is what the nurses told us.  I wish I could have asked Dad if he was in pain throughout the process of dying, but once the pain meds were administered, he didn’t open his eyes or talk to us again.  

Nurse Cody was back for the night shift, and he would be the one to usher us through the long night ahead.

And boy, was it a long night.

That night and into the wee hours of the morning of 18 December 2024, we hovered around Dad’s bedside like angels, wailing over the impending loss. We held Dad’s hands, kissed his furrowed brow, and tried to keep him warm.  Bach’s Cello Suites and Christmas carols from King’s College, and other traditional choirs played in the background that night.  These songs would be the soundtrack of Dad’s death—or rather, the soundtrack to his journey home. And despite the gentleness of the carols and the sheer exhaustion we felt, none of us really got much sleep that night.  Every few minutes of Dad’s cyclical, labored breathing startled us—waking us from any hope of slumber.  Truth be told–sleep is nearly impossible anyway when one of your loved ones is on the brink of death.  You have to really force yourself–at least I do, to do basic things—like sleep and eat, when grief hits.

Shortly after midnight, nurse Cody began coming in every hour or so to check vitals.  Dad’s oxygen was getting lower and lower, as was his heart rate. It wouldn’t be long.  

Just before 5:30 AM, I remember the song “Auld Lang Syne” coming on–this rendition by Lucie Horsch and Ludwig Orchestra.  It was the perfect song before the storm of death took hold. In the midst of the rattled breathing, and soft carols, Dad awoke, and took one massive gulp–startling my poor sister out of her kneeling position.  

“What do you need, Dad?  We’re here!  We’re here!”  I said—halfway thinking this whole thing was just a bad dream.

He opened his eyes, and a single tear came from his right eye—rolling down his cheek.  

Another large gasp—and that was it.  He was gone. 

6:05 AM, Wednesday morning, 18 December, 2024.

And just like that, Dad was home with Christ in paradise. Absent from the body—present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). As I watched this sobering process, I realized something: the process of death is a lot like birth.  There’s pain.  There’s waiting.  There’s a lot of trusting God’s timing.  And then–boom.  It happens.  Life and death—just like that. For my siblings, my mother and I–we were most privileged to be Dad’s midwives into death.  I like to think that we helped usher him onto the shores of his new life, in paradise, with Christ.

This New Year’s Day, I rest in the fact that Dad is home now, and more alive than he’s ever been.  And though this is the hardest holiday season I have yet to experience, I rejoice knowing that my dad’s faith has officially been turned to sight.  

And now—love must go forth.*

“One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

-Luke 23:39-43, ESV

*A quote shared with me by my friend, Olivia.