ONE

Easter Reflections       

The morning dawned crisp and bright. It was the perfect prelude to a glorious Easter Sunday.

My wife and I had talked about attending a sunrise service. After the previous evening commemorating our anniversary, however, we decided to satisfy ourselves with the eleven o’clock service.

A thin mist spread across the hills in the distance, evidence of the night’s lingering chill on this early April morning. The day would warm and the mist burn off. Spring fragrances filled the air. New life was sprouting up and budding out. The earth proclaimed the message of Easter everywhere, though most of its inhabitants remained unseeing and unhearing of those wondrous tidings.

Nothing in the appearance of the morning boded singular significance as heralding a day that would change my life forever . . . literally.

I had been working the previous afternoon in the small enclosed yard behind our home. The pleasure of gardening had always been for me an extension of my spiritual life. I loved growing things—whether people or plants. Space was limited in our senior community, however. Houses and gardens were small. But I cultivated a few plants of special meaning, both as reminders of larger gardens in previous homes, as well as for their deeper significance. At one end we had also added a water feature, with a small stream tumbling over two small waterfalls and through rocks down a hill into a tiny pond at its base.

With spring coming on, though the main pruning had already been done, I had been giving special attention to several grapevines and five prized rose bushes. Both species were favorites as daily examples of God’s creative hand in the universe, and his work in the hearts of his men and women.

I loved vines as vivid images of the Lord’s description in John 15 of humanity’s intricate shared relationship with Father and Son. And I loved roses as living representations of God’s purpose in human life—to grow each of us into the unique perfection, or blossom, of our being. My favorite author, an old Victorian Scotsman, had expressed this last truth in the colorful words:

“Who but a father could think the flowers for his little ones?

“The truth of the flower is not the facts about it, but the shining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing throned on its stalk—the compeller of smile and tear from child and prophet.

“Here is a truth of nature, the truth of a flower—a truth of God! A man’s likeness to Christ is the truth of a man, in the same way that the perfect meaning of a flower is the truth of a flower. The truth of every man is the perfected Christ in him. As Christ is the blossom of humanity, so the blossom of every man is the Christ perfected in him.”

I never gazed upon the blossom of a Peace, Secret, or Sunsprite without thinking that God was also growing me into just such a blossom in his eternal garden.

The evening before my wife and I had been more than usually reflective on our life together. Birthdays and anniversaries tend to do that the more rapidly life progresses. The changes of life brought on by advancing age, the passing of our parents, and watching our children grow older, all took on the luster of greater significance now that we were both in our eighth decade. We ordered Chinese take-out and watched Swing Time, our favorite Astaire and Rogers movie. Then we talked late into the evening, sharing fond memories of times past, and wondering what the future might still have for us.

It was a special anniversary. The evening represented only the third time since our wedding fifty-two years earlier that was followed the next day by Easter. We had planned our wedding for the Saturday before Easter, not realizing what a rarity it would prove to be to celebrate both notable occasions on the same weekend.

Now I was up early, as was my custom, awaiting the Easter sunrise. The air was still. The sun had just begun to creep above the eastern horizon. I was conscious of a deeper quiet than usual, a peace overspreading the damp feathery haze that hovered over the foothills at the edge of town. The peace was not merely external like the mist, but internal. My heart was serene. Something seemed at hand.

Heavy drops hung from the tiny delicate leaves emerging throughout our small garden. I marveled again that God could produce such infinite variations of beauty out of the soil of the ground. I envisioned the roots and leaves drawing precious dew from earth and air, unseen by the eye, which was transformed through their stalks and vines by the wonder of that “natural” process we call growth—which is in truth a miracle of stupendous supernatural power and significance—into tiny succulent grapes or the spectacular colors and fragrances of a Double Delight or Mr. Lincoln rose.

What glories the coming spring and summer would produce. The very thought of the burgeoning growth of the plants around me, what they were becoming, filled my heart with joy.

I retrieved my clippers and proceeded slowly among the vines. Here and there I plucked or trimmed an errant shoot so that the blood of the vine might flow up the main trunk, reflecting that the miracle of both grapes and roses was not one of mere natural law, but of spiritual truth.

I thought how my life, too, might be likened to these plants I nurtured. And I considered again the ancient words:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.”

My thoughts stilled yet more. My heart drifted toward introspective prayer.

Prune from within me, heavenly Vinedresser, I whispered, those branches that are not bearing heavenly fruit. Graft me more fully into the vine of your eternal being, that I might bear your fruit in my character. Show me what heaven is like, so that I can live in its reality here and now. May I live eternally in you, now and forever.

After making my way about our yard, my heart full of many things, I turned back inside. It was time to put on the water for coffee and tea.

TWO

Thunderbolt From A Clear Sky       

In the house a short time later, my wife and I picked up our reminiscing where we had left off the night before. We continued nostalgic as we enjoyed our morning coffee and tea together, reading and talking quietly.

In spite of hardships, heartbreaks, and the endemic pains and disappointments of life, we were grateful to the Lord and one another for the years we had enjoyed. I was seventy-six, she seventy-four. We were in good health and looking forward to many anniversaries to come.

Were our contemplative musings perhaps a premonition, or merely the result of passing another of life’s yearly milestones? If they were in some way a foreshadowing, we were certainly unaware of it.

Yet life is fleeting. Some changes flow into the rivers of our lives gradually. Others shock the system with sudden unpredictability. Death itself, though expected and inevitable in one sense, never arrives as one anticipates. Some perhaps have opportunity to prepare for it while battling cancer, some other debilitating illness, or simply during the long decline of age. For victims of strokes, heart attacks, or accidents, however, the end often comes so suddenly there is no time to put the past in order.

However it comes—whether to the thirty year old or the centenarian—in another way no one is really ever prepared. We put off thinking about it. In a sense, the cause of death hardly matters. Death is the great equalizer which renders all causes, illnesses, accidents, and terminal conditions meaningless. Standing before the door of beyond, we all arrive naked and empty-handed.

If I may be permitted to quote the Scotsman again, my old literary friend described the abruptness of life’s changes in this way:

“Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes into the life of a peaceful individual, without warning of gathered storm, something terrible will fall. And from that moment everything is changed. That life is no more what it was. Forever after, its spiritual weather is altered. But for the one who believes in God, such rending and frightful catastrophes never come but where they are turned around for good in his own life and in other lives he touches.”

Such a thunderbolt was gathering on the horizon of our lives. It was moving toward us rapidly. But we saw no sign of its approach.

Our morning passed quietly. We were in the car on our way to church by 10:15. Anticipating a large Easter turnout, our pastor had encouraged as many as possible to attend at nine. However, we were old school, one might say. We did not enjoy the new trends in church music. We preferred the more traditional environment and familiar hymns of the eleven o’clock service. We thus made our plans accordingly.

There had been reports on the news of potential incidents. Several cities were said to be targeted for high-profile reprisals against what extremists called “the evils of Christianity.” Our city happened to be one of them.

Yet one always takes such warnings with a grain of salt. After all, what are the odds? The danger will never come close.

The church parking lot was crowded when we pulled in about 10:30. Cars from the early service and Sunday school were leaving as new arrivals poured into north and south entrances.

We parked, got out, and walked hand in hand toward the church building, greeting friends as we went.

I glanced at my wife beside me, radiant with her trademark smile. My heart filled again with love for this woman God had chosen for me to spend my life with. She was positively beautiful in my eyes. The crown of white on her head was a resplendent tiara of character, fit symbol of a life spent as a growing daughter of God.

Walking amid a group of ten or fifteen from the lot, we neared the church building talking and visiting together.

I glanced beyond the adjacent street. The church sat across from several high-rise apartment buildings. Nothing in particular drew my eye. I simply moved my head unconsciously in that direction.

A brilliant flash suddenly exploded from one of the buildings. It was followed by a second, then a third.

I heard nothing. I was only aware the next instant of a terrific blow slamming into my chest. I thought I had been bludgeoned with a sledgehammer.

My senses went into slow motion. My first thought was heart attack.

All around people were running frantically. I saw their mouths shouting and screaming. But I could not hear them. I could not run with them. My feet were cemented to the ground.

My vision blurred. I felt neither hands nor feet.

I turned toward my wife. She was clutching at me. Her eyes filled with panic and terror.

I felt myself going faint. My knees buckled.

Then blackness engulfed me.

THREE

Coming to Terms       

It did not take long after groggily coming to myself before the realization became stark and clear: I would not recover.

I knew I was dying.

Everything I had been reflecting on about life had come upon me more suddenly than I could have imagined. Had my Easter morning thoughts and prayers been a harbinger of my own impending death?

It hardly mattered. I was lying in a hospital bed with tubes attached all over me and coming out of my nose and mouth, and with monitors beeping around me. I was utterly motionless, unable to move a little finger.

Worse, I was completely incapable of communicating with the outside world. I could tell that my body had been shattered beyond repair. It was time to turn the earthly tabernacle in on a new model.

My recollections of the incident were hazy. I had felt nothing, and felt nothing much now other than motionlessness, helplessness, and the vague discomfort of things tugging at various parts of my body. I still assumed I had suffered a heart attack. My first thought was for my wife. I tried to open my eyes and look about. I must be paralyzed, I thought. I couldn’t move even my eyelids. That’s when I began to think that something more than a heart attack might be going on.

Instinctively I knew that recovery was out of the question. I was probably lucky to be alive at all, even—which seemed clearly my status—if only on life support.

I had lived a long life. I was ready to go. This wasn’t how I’d envisioned it—though who ever dies according to plan? Death is the supreme unplanned event of life. But I was not afraid of death.

Being ready to die didn’t mean I wasn’t full of protest. I faced the normal initial reactions—the frustration of suddenly finding myself so helpless, the complaints stirred up in my mind against the “unfairness” of it all, the dozens of ways the question Why me? rears its head, as if anyone ever promised that life was supposed to be fair.

So many thoughts, too, revolved around my dear wife. My whole being ached for what she must be going through. And for this to have happened on Easter Sunday . . . I hoped this wouldn’t forever after spoil our anniversary and Easter for her.

Such thoughts suddenly brought to mind the question how long I had been here. Was it the day after Easter, or a week later . . . even a month?

I had no idea how long I had been lying in this room, or if perhaps my wife has also been injured in whatever had happened.

Was she in the bed next to me . . . or, worse, might she even have been killed?

Pervading the turbulence of speculation that comes at such a time was the despondency that floods one’s soul to realize that life as you know it is over.

Gradually, however, I got over those responses and determined to make the best of it.

An old 17^th century prayer was burned into my mind from years of seeing it framed on a wall in our home. A few of its words now returned probingly to my mind: Keep me reasonably sweet. I do not want to be a saint—some of them are so hard to live with. But a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places.

Okay, I thought, it was time to practice what I preached. It was time to see if I could approach death with grace, dignity, sweetness, and without complaint. I was old. This had happened. I loathed the very thought of becoming a sour old person. What an awful way to exit life. Even if my comatose state prevented me voicing irritation and complaint aloud, I didn’t want to become sour even to myself. However long I had—hours, days, weeks . . . whatever—I would be kind-hearted and sweet, even if only within the silence of my own mind.

Once I came to terms with the inevitable fact that I was not going to recover, along with my determination to face death bravely and sweetly, I began looking forward to it. So many questions and perplexities and theological conundrums would soon be answered. A great adventure awaited me!

I suppose if I were brutally honest I would have to confess to being just a little nervous. Not afraid of the idea of death. But uneasy about the process of dying itself, and what I would find as I walked through that unknown door.

Would it hurt? Would I be aware of what was happening? Would I still be me?

Then there was the whole nebulous idea of “heaven.” Christians talk and sing about it. But when it comes down to it, heaven is a greater unknown than death itself.

I wasn’t worried about where I would spend eternity. Yet no matter how strong one’s faith, who is not curiously apprehensive about what death and heaven will actually be like?

How many of my preconceptions about the afterlife would turn out to be true?

What would be different than expected? What might I have been wrong about?

How much reality would I discover there had been in the many highly-publicized “visions” of heaven and hell? Had they been true visions, hoaxes, innocent delusions . . . or perhaps just dreams?

Would I even be allowed to see hell?

How old would I be?

Would I know family and friends?

What would time be like in a place where a day was as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day?

And in the words of the old children’s book I had read so often to my sons, what would people in heaven do all day?

On top of these were the myriad theological uncertainties that made up the list of things I wanted to “ask God some day.” They were completely diverse: Where did Cain’s wife come from . . . how long did creation take . . . how much about evolution was true . . . who wrote Hebrews . . . was Noah’s ark still intact on the earth . . . did life exist elsewhere in the heavens . . . were Adam and Eve real people . . . how did God create matter out of nothingness . . . how did he set off the Big Bang . . . what were the true entry requirements for heaven?

Or would all such conundrums vanish from my mind the instant I crossed the threshold?

It surprised me that more people didn’t talk about their thoughts and hopes and uncertainties. Through the years as a hospital and hospice volunteer, I’d sat at the bedside of countless men and women as death approached. But no one spoke of it.

FOUR

Bucket Lists       

It may sound strange that I was contemplating such things. But just laying on my back . . . waiting . . . drifting in and out of consciousness . . . I could do nothing else but think. All I had left was my mind.

My greatest regret was leaving my wife. But we had passed the fifty year mark together two years before. Maybe it was time to say good-bye. Again, not like I’d planned. There was so much I wanted to say to the one who had shared life with me. Now that my tongue was stilled, however, I had to let the memories speak for me.

As my first hours of silent awareness passed, with the relief of hearing my wife’s voice in the room speaking occasionally with nurses, I learned that it was now four days after Easter, and that a shooting had taken place outside our church.

Apparently the incident was big news, though I was the only serious casualty.

We had tried to think of different scenarios the might occur as we aged—strokes, Alzheimer’s, loss of mobility. We had even tried to devise plans how to communicate if one of us became incapable of speech. But we hadn’t thought of a coma. I suppose as prepared for death as you try to be, or think you are, you can never really prepare for the unforeseen and unknown.

My poor wife’s tearful words as she sat at my bedside were a daily anguish. That was another reason I was anxious to go. Long good-byes are always uncomfortable. I hoped this one wouldn’t drag on longer than necessary.

She would grieve. However, she was a strong and resolute woman. She would be fine. She had already lost the me she knew anyway. I could hear her when she spoke to me, and feel her touch as she held my limp hand. It broke my heart to listen. I knew she had no idea whether I could hear her or not. I was in what the doctors called a “deep coma.” Now that my brain had woken up, however, I heard every word. At least she didn’t talk baby talk like several of the nurses. She spoke to me in the same voice she always had. I was grateful for that. I felt awake, that I ought to be able to converse with her. Yet my body was incapable of response.

In the minds of the doctors who came and went, I was already dead. They were trying to find a gracious way to persuade my wife, as they called it when she wasn’t listening, to let them “pull the plug.”

Hey, wait a minute! I wanted to shout. I’m not dead yet. Don’t put that on her.

I was ready for God to pull the plug. But no wife ought to be forced into such an agonizing decision. Death should be a peaceful transition, not a heart-wrenching series of impossible choices.

How desperately I longed for a way to reassure my wife that I was okay, that I was at peace, that my bodily pain was no more than I could bear, and that I was looking forward to whatever came next.

All I could do was lie there. I hoped that somehow my brain waves might connect with hers in such a way that she could share my peace. We had always talked about the ESP that sometimes seemed to flow between us. I needed that ESP to work especially hard right now.

We had been talking about our so-called bucket lists for years. We’d done our best to prepare ourselves for the end of life by making sure we had no relational “issues” hanging around. If we needed to forgive or to ask forgiveness for insensitivities or hurts we had caused, we had tried to deal with them. There were a few relationships, we realized, that would have to wait for the other side to be healed. But mostly the relational slates between the two of us were as clean as we were capable of making them.

We hadn’t traveled widely. We’d seen all we desired to see of the world. When people spoke of bucket lists, those lists usually contained places they wanted to go, and perhaps people they wanted to meet. Our bucket lists had little to do with vacations or sightseeing. We had never been on a cruise. We had not visited Hawaii, New Zealand, Russia, Alaska, Japan or a thousand other places . . . and had no desire to.

We had been to Scotland several times. Our souls resonated with nature, history, and life’s spiritual themes when we were there. That ancient land fulfilled our travel ambitions.

Our bucket lists, therefore, were more personal. They concerned the man and woman we wanted to become, changes we wanted to make within ourselves before death overtook us and we were left with whatever qualities of character we had allowed to be built into our souls.

There were people I wanted to meet, of course. But all of them were dead already—mentors, relatives, authors, my parents, Peter and Paul, the gospelist Mark. Meeting them, therefore, would not qualify for a bucket list. It was rather something I was eagerly waiting for on the other side.

I had a million questions I wanted to ask all those departed people too.