Prologue
His loved ones are very precious to him
and he does not lightly let them die.
Psalm 116:15 TLB
September 12, 2015
Duke Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina
“Mom, I think you need to come—now!”
Tyler, one of my sons, towered over me and gently touched my shoulder. “Dad . . .” He turned toward the hospital bed in the center of the small ICU room—my husband’s bed that I had kept vigil beside through the night.
I had held and studied his hands through the lifeless metal rails as I tried to grasp and prolong the moments with him. Those hands perfectly fit mine. They had loved and comforted me, cradled our babies, carved Thanksgiving turkeys, taught our sons to fish, and patiently combed knots out of our daughters’ long, tangled hair.
Now, before the sun set on this day, they would be gone.
My greatest fear was coming to pass. Ray is going to die and leave me alone. I don’t think I can survive this loss!
When my cell phone rang and I heard our pastor’s voice calling from Colorado, I stepped aside to the lone window framing the surreal normalcy of other people’s lives several stories below.
“He’s not going to make it,” I told him when he asked about Ray. “He’ll probably die today.
In the time it took to say those words, something changed. I clutched the tear-soaked blanket draping my shoulders and rushed to Ray’s bedside. He was slumped, unconscious, but I knew.
I wanted to crawl through the railing, untangle wires and tubes, and soak him in. How close can I get? I leaned into him, caressed his face and head, breathing in the smell of him.
“I’m walking you home, baby. I’m walking you home,” I whispered into his ear, feeling life leave. “I think he’s gone,” I sobbed to sons sharing this holy ground.
My son Nick rose, seeking confirmation from the “dying team” who watched outside our door, monitoring everything living and dying in Ray’s body.
“No, not quite,” one said. “Almost.”
How do you do this dying thing? There are no do-overs. Lord, help me. Help me do this letting go well.
Uninvited and barely noticed, a doctor draped in a white coat stepped into his room. Rubber soles carried her silently to his bedside—our bedside. Sensing her presence and the fading of his, I looked up, into unfamiliar eyes that were neither kind nor harsh—a trespasser for a time in our story.
“May I examine his eyes?”
I nodded, returning my gaze to Ray’s face, continuing to caress it, willing my hands and eyes to remember the feel of it: its warmth, blended textures of graying cheek stubble and life-etched creases, crows-feet that crinkled when he smiled, salt and pepper full goatee trimmed close, one he longed to grow years before I agreed. I continued to pour love into his ears, hoping he could hear—or see with resurrection eyes.
“The time of death is 9:48,” noted the doctor. Ray had peacefully left his tent.
We sat, my sons and I, silent, surrendering in our own ways to this overwhelming grief.
“I want to pray,” I finally said, reaching for the man-hands of our once little boys. I needed to give thanks in the face of death, to stake my claim on the hope of our grand reunion at the end of this long goodbye.
Tears blanketed the sheet at the foot of his bed as we bowed our heads. “Thank you, Father, for Ray’s life, for your gift of him to me, and to our family. Have mercy on us and help us learn to do life without him. May your presence become greater than his absence.”
Then we left, walking wordlessly through sterile hallways that delivered us into a waiting room filled with family members and strangers who hoped our story would not become theirs.
9:48
After forty-two years, three months, and ten days of marriage, I must remember when it stopped—the clock of life as I’d known it.
But the countdown had begun years before.