Pass me a tissue

I have a a very, very dear friend who is going through what I think is a crisis of faith.  She has lived through some really rough stuff and has every right to be angry at God.  Even turn her back on God and question His very existence.  I am angry for her, my faith lags for her.  But see, something happened once upon a time in my past that makes me know God exists.  I never really shared the story with anyone, or my thoughts on what happened, I figured people would think I am nuts.  Was it Lily Tomlin who said, why is it when we talk to God it's praying but when He talks to us it's schizophrenia?

My friend had just had an incident happen right before she texted me.  She said she had to tell me about this thing that happened with a book of faith, a cat, an I-pad, and a highlighted passage caused by a cat paw.  It was a random sort of thing, but in my humble opinion I told her it could be God's way of trying to tap her on the shoulder and remind her that He is there still.  Still waiting to be a mooring of strength during this difficult time.  That's when I decided I would tell her why I believe in God, and why maybe it was His way of reaching out to her, this freaky happening she was trying to reasonably explain.

I know I have mentioned my father and him being sick for a long time in one blog or another.  He suffered with so many different things, lupus, dermatomyositis, replaced heart valves, multiple heart stents, the list is never ending unfortunately.  Anyway one of the problems his lupus caused was pleurisy, fluid in his lungs.  He had to get a chest tube to drain it.  During the procedure, unbeknownst to us, a staff infection was introduced.

My dad made it through the holidays that year, barely.  The staff infection was invading his body and doing it's damage.  My mom knew there was a problem the morning he sat at the table trying to put his bridge in upside down and started to make no sense.  Panicked she raced him to the local hospital, she thought he was having a stroke.  I will not bore you with everything that happened that day.  It was a horrible day that ended with me getting a phone call from my older brother the next morning around 5:30-6:00AM.  If you have a loved one with serious health issues, you know the phone ringing at that time is never a good thing.

I answered the phone that morning, and life as I knew it kind of ended with the answering of that call. I remember verbatim what Rick said to me.  "Dee, dad's back in the hospital.  He's on life support but you don't need to come up or nothing.  He's gonna be fine".

Insert tire screeching sound here......

My mind started racing as did the tears down my cheeks.  I woke Brad up and we decided I would go up to New York ASAP with the two littlest ones.  One wasn't quite two, the other was in pre-school.  He would stay here with the two in school.  I would let him know if they needed to come up and how soon.

I don't even remember how I packed, but I did, got the kids loaded in the car, it was a cold January, kissed my husband and other two ladies good bye and left.  We drove straight to the hospital, took over 8 hours that drive.  But we got there, I made my way to where my family was waiting, it was my brother and his girlfriend who is now his wife, my mom, her sisters, their husbands, my father's brother and some of his cousins.  I knew it was bad by the way everyone looked.  I left my two little ones with my mom and aunt, and tentatively stepped through the automatic doors to make my way to my dad's room.  My legs felt like lead, they didn't want to move. I got there and I wasn't prepared for the sight to be honest.  My father's brother had come in with me.  I grabbed his arm as my legs failed and buckled beneath me.  I had never seen him with so many tubes and wires coming out of him. I cry as I see the image in my head again.....I had to shift my sight to the huge window that took up the whole wall behind his bed.  It had started to snow, these lovely, large, white, ethereal flakes making their way gently down, so pretty behind the starkness of the dark sky.  When I got a hold of myself, I walked away from the window and dried my tears. I asked the nurse who came in to check on his machinery what everything was for.  She basically explained the staff infection ravaged his body.  Systematically and insidiously shut down his organs.  He was on a respirator so he could breathe, he was on dialysis as well, I don't remember much more of what she said after that.  She asked me if I'd like my dad to wake up and see me.  I did, more than anything in the world, at that point I wanted my dad to know I was there.

She was a big Jamaican woman, with a lovely lilting accent, and she said loudly to my dad, "Anthony, (but it came out Ant-honey), your daughter is here, Anthony.  Wake up and see her."  And he did.

I will never forget the look he gave me, how scared he looked, how happy he looked to see me, but I think in his heart he knew he must be in rough shape for me to be there.  I showed him the picture of his granddaughters I brought.  I told him his girls missed him and wanted to see him home soon. The nurse taped the picture on the side of his bed where he could see it.  Then I grabbed the hand with the least amount of tubes coming out of it and held it, I leaned down and kissed it, he couldn't move his head with that thing in his throat, I wanted so desperately to kiss his forehead....

He lingered like this for awhile.  I stayed with my mom with the two littlest ones.  Our lives came and went in shifts.  I would take the morning visitors shift so mom could get some work done, I'd come home and she'd go and take the evening visitation shift.  Or vice versa.  I'd do the cleaning, the shopping, the cooking, I did everything I could to help.

I went one morning shift for her, I had done the evening one the night before, kissed dad and told him I'd see him tomorrow. At this point the nurses knew me, I got several kind greetings before I turned into dad's room.  When I walked in my dad was awake and had NO tube in his throat!  I was amazed, I grabbed a nurse and asked what happened.  Why did they un-intubate him??  He was barely awake the night before, what was going on??  She told me to ask him.

So I did.

He couldn't really speak, the tube had been in his throat damn near two weeks and had damaged his vocal cords and esophagus.  I asked him what happened???  He pointed up.  Then he sort of hissed an answer to me slowly.  The gist of what he hissed and pantomimed was he told me he took the tube out himself last night in the middle of the night.  He told me God came to him the night before. Touched him and woke him up. Told him to take the tube out of his throat. That he needed to be able to talk to us before he died.

I ran out of the room and called my mother immediately.  She rushed to the hospital on the news.

Then another miracle occurred.  His kidneys started working again.  Just like that, the damn things started doing their job.  They stopped the dialysis.  He started to get better, good enough to be moved to a regular room within a weeks time.

Good enough for me to shave his face again, and even clip his toenails a job mom and I used to flip a coin to see who had to do it before when he was too sick to do it himself.  I sat and held his hand and watched TV, me yammering away about his granddaughters.  Just happy he could hear me, he was awake and every now and again he could hiss an answer to me.

Before you know it we started making plans to bring him home.  Mom was going to get him an aide to help because he was supposed to go to a rehab facility first but he begged my mom not to and to let him go home.  Of course we made plans to do that instead.  I made plans to go back to Virginia and see my girls and come back in a week for a few weeks again and help mom.  I'd do that as long as I needed to during his rehab.

I remember the last time I saw him, I remember the last time we held hands, I remember the last I love yous spoken between us.  Something that my heart wraps around every time I miss him, hearing his voice, seeing him....

We got the phone call that night around 3am.  He was crashing, I heard mom say, "everything.  Do everything you have to to save him."  By the time we got to the hospital

he

was

gone......

Long story short the staff infection had invaded the defibrillator implanted in his chest to keep his heart beating regularly and it failed to work.  His heart stopped that night.......never to beat again.

But see, I believe God did go to him.  Did tell him to take that tube out.  Did make it so he could let us know how much he loved us.  I also believe God knew my dad had suffered long and hard, long enough.  He knew the struggles coming up for my dad would be more than he deserved to bear, so he called him home. Rewarded him with the paradise we are all promised someday.

And I got that last I love you everyone always says they wish they had when a loved one leaves this world.  I didn't have to wish.  I got mine.

We all got the gift of those few weeks of dad being able to be with us again.  I was blessed beyond measure to receive them.  Call me schizo, but God talked to my dad, God blessed us all with his grace those few weeks.

So my very, very dear friend, do I think the cat paw accidentally stepped on the particular passage that was highlighted?  In a  word?

Nope.

I think the Lord has a way of reaching all of us that makes sense to us.

I believe he made this little creature you love as much do his mouthpiece. He is reaching out to you with an innocent creation letting you know there is a Kingdom where no numbness exists.

Ball's in you court now, do with it what you will......or let the kitty bat it around for awhile. All while you wait for the next tap on your shoulder.