We had sat with Dad for a total of 8 long weeks watching, waiting and praying that God would end the suffering by either healing him physically or taking him to Heaven to be with him. When the moment finally came when Dad let go, I didn't want to let him go. No matter how much I had prepared myself what I soon discovered is, you are never really prepared. The emotions of losing Dad are like waves which pour over you completely unexpected. Dad called depending on his mood two to three times a day the last year. When the phone rings on some days and I know it will never be Dad again and so the emotions can surface. He had a passion for Blaine and Suzanna as they were his ultimate pride and joy watching Blaine and Suzanna grieve for their Poppy is painful. It is the part knowing you will never hear his voice again or hear his wisdom again that can wash over me like a flood. You want the world to stop. You want to look at people going about their day and scream, " Stop! My Dad just died! Can't you wait and let me get ready to rejoin the race again" The world keeps moving right along like a Merry Go Round spinning . It forces you back on rushing and racing trying to catch up on the last spins you missed as we are in the land of the living. Although now that I have experienced I see the passing from this life to the next as something worth stopping the world for, for just a moment so those who have lost can catch their breath before jumping back in to life.
BUT those are the human emotions tied to the grief. What I know is that this earthly home is temporary. We are eternal based on our belief in Jesus Christ, so even though Dad is gone from this world, he has entered his spiritual eternal home. I was terribly worried that Dad had not "made himself right with God" many days, but what God taught me regarding this one fear of mine was unbelievable. I saw a mighty powerful grace filled God surround my father in his last days bringing him back into a relationship with his maker.
In those last two days, Dad asked for prayer. My father never asked for prayer to my knowledge in my whole entire life until the last two days of his life. He knew all along where he was headed as he spent those 8 weeks taking care of unfinished business with siblings and damaged relationships between friends. I watched a man who never surrendered began to surrender and through that surrender accept our Father who is in heaven. As Dad was actively dying taking his last few breaths, I clung to him saying, "Daddy, you look for Jesus. You call to Jesus. You call his name Daddy. Call Jesus!". What mattered to me in Dad's last 4 minutes of life was that he call to Jesus.
God promises never to leave or forsake us. Dad was God's all along. God had never left him. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. That love which is deep and wide was pouring out to my father in an incredible way those last weeks. Sometimes in the hospital, I could feel the Holy Spirit. I would on occasions look up at Doyle and say, " Doyle, breathe in, can't you breathe the Holy Spirit? Don't you feel God's presence in this room?" He would always smile and lovingly say" Sara, no that must be just for you." It was if the angels were dancing about him preparing him to let go.
The last weeks were incredibly long and hard and painfully brutal. Suffering is miserable. Although I have come to see that in Dad's suffering and his complete surrender to the fact a physical healing was not going to happen, Dad was spiritually healed. In those last 4 minutes what mattered was not that he knew of my love for him or how much I appreciated him for being my father for 38 years, but that he was calling to Jesus. He was finding Jesus. So really what it comes down to is Jesus. Nothing else.
My father and I at times had our ups and downs and topsy curvy moments, but God did a miraculous thing as I cared for him while he was dying. God wiped that away. Dad and I's relationship had never been stronger when he died. I can't recall even as a little girl calling my father Daddy as he was always Dad. Through those longs weeks, our relationship transformed where in those last breaths he took, he was not my Dad dying, but my Daddy and a incredible Poppy to Blaine and Suzanna. Grief and bereavement are exhausting. I have found it harder to reenter the world than I would have imagined. Life does not give us a pause even when I beg God for one. I am so grateful for the eternal perspective we have in Jesus which allows us to reenter. I am grateful for the race that He has put in front of me, although lat times I feel like really I can not run this race not at all. I want to collapse face down and just say I have hit pause. He picks me up and sends me onward, upward to march the race He has laid before me knowing He has all I need. Then, in His grace, He floods me with His power to keep on running so to hear him whisper , "Well Done Good and Faithful Servant" In my last breaths I have learned all that matters is Jesus. Sweet Jesus.
http://www.legacy.com/HoustonChronicle/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=117256983
