As we drove the short distance from our house, he told me that Jim was sick. He had a virulent pneumonia, and there was nothing anyone could do except wait and pray.
When we got to the farmhouse, Jim’s dad opened the door, and I followed my father into the house and up to the second floor. There was only one light in the room, and it was beside the bed where Jim was lying, covered with blankets and breathing hard. His mother stood beside the bed and was in the act of changing a compress on his head when we arrived.
I was more frightened than I had ever been in my life. My father examined my friend, and then he bent over his body and began to breathe into his mouth. He did that for a very long time, until there was a sudden rasp of air from Jim’s lungs. Then silence. My dad kept on breathing for him until Jim’s mother went to the other side of the bed and put her hand on my father’s shoulder.
“He’s gone, Doc,” she said, and sat down on the bed next to her son. Jim’s father led us out of the room, and I followed my father to the car to make the long, terrible drive home.
I did not know what to do. I did not know how to get hold of my feelings. I spent most of the time crying and the rest of the time trying not to cry. Jim’s family had his funeral from their house as many people did in that small town. Everyone came. Everyone went to the cemetery. Everyone looked awful.
For weeks afterwards, I moped through my life. My mother and father tried to help me, to talk to me, but I heard nothing. I went to school still, but didn’t work or speak much to anyone. I just shut everyone out. Everyone.
Then on a Friday, as summer neared, I walked the gravel road that led to the bridge where I had last been with my friend. As I came closer, I was astonished to see someone sitting on our rock. I shielded my eyes against the sun and could tell immediately it was Jim’s mother.
She saw me coming and motioned to me to sit beside her. I really didn’t want to do that, but I understood I had to. We sat for a long time, not saying anything at all. I felt worn out and so sad that I couldn’t speak. Finally, I leaned my head against her shoulder. She put her arm around me, and I just lost it.
She said nothing while I wept the last of my tears. Her dress smelled of her kitchen, and somehow that comforted me a little. Finally, when I could speak, I said, “I can’t get over it. I just can’t.”
“Why would you want to?” she said in a soft, sweet voice.
“That’s what you have to do,” I said. “‘Get over it, get past it, move on,’ people said.”
“You just told me you can’t do that. And you are right. What we have to do is make Jim’s dying a part of us, just as the rest of his life was. You must take it into yourself. Breathe it in. Take it into your soul and let it remake you. A young man who has lost his best friend is a very different young man from one who has never had such a thing happen.”
What she said struck me with such clarity that I sighed and sat up. Sunlight dazzled the surface of the water below us. And for the first time in many days, I could once again see my friend . . . see how he had helped shape my life and how he would be a part of it forever.
We sat together for a long time. Then Jim’s mother patted my hand and said, “Cookies?” And so we walked in the fullness of the day, between the hedgerows and Queen Anne’s lace, past the fields of corn growing, ever growing, to the farmhouse on the hill where I had learned so much about love.
Walker Meade
Opening Day in Heaven
Opening Day—two words that conjure up memories of seasons long past and of lazy days passed by fathers and sons at ballparks all over America. It’s a marvelous, cathartic day, when everyone is young again, spring is in the air, and everything is fresh and new.
I’m not sure Opening Day will ever be the same for me again.
Last September, my wife and I stared in disbelief as doctors told us that our son Mikey was suffering from a rare form of brain cancer called pontine glioma and had a few short weeks to live.
It couldn’t happen to him. He was so healthy, strong and full of life; it had to be something else that was causing his sudden awkwardness and loss of balance. There was no chance that a normal kid could have no symptoms one day and be terminal the next.
In just five short weeks, we found out we were wrong. Our five-year-old son died on October 16, 1999.
At the time of his death, baseball was just starting to have some significance in his life, and the memory of his last game has forever changed my perspective on the sport I fell in love with more than thirty-five years ago.
Mikey had seen the Yankees when they came to town, and Mark McGwire, too, but it was the Phillie Phanatic mascot that held his fascination.
He listened to me retell countless stories of my late father seeing Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the 1920s and the time he introduced me to Mickey Mantle for my tenth birthday. I told him about a magical October night when Reggie Jackson blasted three pitches out of Yankee Stadium in game six of the 1977 World Series. But Mikey really wanted to meet the Phanatic.
A local bank arranged for our family to be their guest in the firm’s luxury box for the last game of the season. I contacted the Philadelphia Phillies, and within an hour Mikey had a date with the chubby green mascot.
In the fifth inning of a meaningless game, Mikey got his wish.
The visit lasted only a few minutes, but he was as excited and animated as I’ve ever seen him. I couldn’t help but think that I must have had the same look on my face when I met Mickey Mantle.
For a few minutes, we almost forgot what inevitably lay ahead.
We settled back down to watch the rest of the game. After innumerable sodas and soft pretzels, I took the lad to the men’s room. As I helped him tuck in his shirt, he said to me in a world-weary voice, “Dad, this is my last game.”
“Don’t say that, Mikey,” I replied. “There will be plenty of other games. You’ll see.”
“No, Dad . . .” his voice trailed off. Then suddenly, young again, “Is there baseball in heaven?”
“Of course there is, pal,” I said as I tried to keep my composure. “And all the great players are there. It must be something to see.”
“Do you think Grandpop will take me to a game?” he asked.
Forgive me today if I skip the box scores in tomorrow’s edition—because the game I’m interested in won’t get much coverage. It’s Opening Day in heaven.
I hope the Babe and Mickey hit a couple of home runs for the little boy with the big hot pretzel sitting in the box seats next to my father.
Mike Bergen
Never Good at Good-Bye
Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you. So carve your name on hearts and not on marble.
C. H. Spurgeon
“Paper or plastic?”
It was a familiar voice I heard at least once a week. His name was Frank, and he bagged groceries for a living in our small one-grocery-store town in rural South Carolina. He was rarely seen without his baseball cap and that crooked smile he wore from ear to ear.
“Plastic is fine.”
That was just the beginning of our conversation during my weekly visits. He, at his own speed, loaded all my groceries in white plastic bags as I waited patiently to follow him out the door. I was very aware of the limp he tried so hard to hide. He was in his late twenties and mildly retarded. During our conversations, he would repeat himself, then laugh. We went to the same church, but when we saw each other there, I never said much more than hello. It was during my trips to the grocery store where we shared the most time.
I was amazed at the social calendar Frank kept. I knew he was always faithful to our church; there was never a time he wasn’t there. He told me of trips to the local YMCA and baseball games he wouldn’t miss. Once all my groceries were in the car, he would linger in the parking lot until finally he would give me a bear hug that almost knocked me down! Frank never was good at good-bye. I’d kiss him on the cheek and promise to see him on Sunday.
One hot, sum
mer morning, I made my weekly trip to the grocery store, but as soon as I walked into the building, I could sense something terribly wrong. Instead of the morning “hellos” and cheerful clerks, all I saw were heads hung low and many crying. I immediately looked for Frank, knowing he would tell me what was going on. I didn’t see him bagging groceries, so I assumed he was stocking the shelves. I went down every aisle looking for him. As I stood at the last aisle, my heart beat fast and my throat tightened. I quietly walked to a small office in the back, and I saw an older man with his head down on his desk, weeping. I put my hand on his back to comfort him, and in between his sobs, I heard a shrill, “Oh, Frank!”
My dear friend Frank had drowned on a fishing trip. My heart had never experienced such sadness. I wanted to tell the world how this young man had lifted my spirits on so many rainy days.
On the afternoon of his funeral, I went to support his family even though we had never met. I didn’t expect many people to be there because Frank was a simple man. As I pulled into the parking lot of my church, I was stunned because I could barely find a parking spot.
Once I walked into the church, I got the last seat in the last row. I heard ushers behind me telling other anxious people there was an overflow section in another part of the building. It was very obvious people around me were thinking the same thing. Why were there so many here for Frank’s funeral? It’s as if we are burying a famous person or political leader. Half an hour later than the funeral was scheduled to begin, and after everyone was finally seated, the pastor rolled up his sleeves and slowly walked up to the pulpit. He stood there, silently, as if trying to gain his composure. Tears fell down his face, and just as he was about to speak, someone two rows up stood. He was a tall, burly man; he must have stood over six feet tall.
“I would just like to say, Frank came into my store three days a week with a bucket and some soap. He cleaned my bathrooms until they shined, and he would never take a red cent. I won’t forget him.” He sat down, not trying to hide the tears.
And then someone else rose. It was an elderly lady who stood with a cane.
“Every time I went to the grocery store, Frank would put this little paper into my bag.” Out of her purse she pulled a little tattered card. “It always said thank you for being so kind.”
A young boy, not much taller than the pew he stood in front of, proudly said, “Frank went to every one of my baseball games whether I played or not.”
Story after story was repeated that day. The funeral lasted more than four hours, and many people still lingered, waiting to honor the memory of such a remarkable man. Frank’s family had no idea of the life he had led; he was just a “good son,” his mother and father said. Many of us there that day were changed forever.
Frank never was good at good-bye, but that day he outdid himself.
Amanda Dodson
5
SPECIAL
MOMENTS
Each one of us is born for a specific reason and purpose, and each one of us will die when he or she has accomplished whatever was to be accomplished. The in-between depends on our own willingness to make the best of every day, of every moment, of every opportunity. The choice is always yours.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Trailing Clouds of Glory
Death has many secrets, and I know few or none of them. However, I’ve been given a story to tell—a story about a time when that thick veil of mystery tore open just a little bit and then closed up again.
One glimpse that ignited a lifetime of faith.
It happened about a month after my thirtieth birthday. The school year had ended, and I was finishing up final grade reports for my students. The house was a mess, and my suitcase was half-packed. In two days, I would fly to California. My father had been sick for months, and his voice over the phone had been sounding weaker and weaker. Good thing I’d be seeing him soon, wrapping things up. Nice and tidy.
Then that night, some time before dawn, without moving a finger or twitching an eyelid, I suddenly rose up out of a deep sleep, like a boulder floating to the surface of the sea. I didn’t wake up in the usual sense. That is, I was wakeful but not awake. It’s hard to explain. I simply found myself . . . somewhere. Talking with someone. Someone big and wonderful. I didn’t know who, and I didn’t think how. I really didn’t think at all. I just felt warmth and love, and safety and peace. I couldn’t see much, just a shape, a shadowy figure. But I heard a voice, a big voice. Hello, it said, I’ve missed you. I love you.
The encounter lasted several minutes, and the emotions are still vivid to this day. Like a lion cub getting licked with affection, I was floating in bliss.
Then I slipped back into slumber. When I awoke in the morning sunlight, I remembered the pre-dawn visitation clearly. I had overslept. The alarm hadn’t sounded—my electric clock had stopped.
The very moment of mechanical failure was obvious to see: a quarter to three. The hands had locked in their tracks, flung open as though ready for a hug at the nine and the three.
About an hour later, the phone call came. It was my mother. My dad had died early that morning.
The news hit me like an explosion. After the initial shock, I realized what had happened while I slept. I turned to look at the clock again. It had stopped at the exact moment my dad had died.
My father had stopped to visit me on his way out of this dimension.
For the first time in my life, I experienced what the Hawaiians call He ho’ike na ka po—a revelation of the night. They believe that dreams can be a bridge between this world and the next.
In the context of ordinary dreams, I’d always considered the notion to be sentimental and vague.
But what I experienced was no ordinary dream. The meeting was vivid and clear, and my dad’s message was so reassuring that I am moved to share it: I’m happy, he said in a wordless voice. What a relief to be released from that body . . . to range so freely . . . to grow so wide. I can’t say much, there’s only a moment to check in, but—wow. Would you just look at me?
And I couldn’t look at him because my eyes were not capable of zeroing in on the heavenly realms that he now inhabited.
I didn’t worry about my dad after that. I knew he was experiencing something about death, something big. And he’d made a point to stop by and share some of it with me. In fact, for a moment he pulled me along.
As I am writing this, I stop to read again those famous lines from Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality:
Not in entire forgetfulness and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.
When my dad sailed past, I got caught up in the clouds of glory that he was trailing, and I got to peek through that doorway. What I saw and felt is not something that I can articulate. But I began to see that the mysteries of life and death amount to so much more than I had ever imagined.
I kept that little electric clock in my closet. Then, five years later, someone tried to get the clock to work again.
I had hired a housecleaner, and she went at her job with a voracious ambition. She vacuumed the box springs of the bed and sanded the toilet seat so I wouldn’t slip off in the middle of the night. She got into my closet, ironed my socks and re-laced all my shoes. Then she found the clock.
When I got home that night, I saw the ironed socks and the textured toilet seat. Then I saw my father’s parting memento. The cheap little plastic clock was sitting under the bed where she had plugged it in, trying to get it to work. She had tried resetting the clock so it no longer said quarter to three. It no longer said anything meaningful. And it still didn’t work. Now, instead of a sacred relic, the clock was just a piece of junk.
I made a mental note to throw it away, but then I forgot about it.
Three days later, I remembered and looked under the bed again.
There was the clock. Somehow, it had re-set itself to the time it wanted to proclaim: a quarter to three.
My eyebrows went up in astonishment.
My brain was trying to explain what I was experiencing, but it couldn’t. So then I simply unplugged the clock, carried it to my office and set it on the shelf over my desk where it sits today.
Whenever I see it, I remember.
And that’s all I have to say on the subject of death.
Paul D. Wood
THE FAMILY CIRCUS®
By Bil Keane
“Grandma says it’s okay that this life
won’t last forever—the next one will.”
Reprinted with permission from Bil Keane.
The Beach Trip
It wasn’t a typical trip to Carolina Beach. Oh, I had the cooler, beach chair and towel, but it still wasn’t the same. I wasn’t going to the beach to relax—I was going to remember my son, Cameron, who died of leukemia in March 1998. You see, on this day Cameron would have turned twenty-one.
I decided to go to a favorite part of Carolina Beach—the one within walking distance of a McDonald’s (in case you get bored of the beach and want some fries).
Now, it’s typical that little kids are drawn to me. Maybe it’s the fact that I smile at them, maybe it’s the fries, but it does happen. So I was not surprised to have one small child covering my feet with sand and another playing with his toys right by my beach chair. Their parents were seated behind me, and the two boys spent about an hour running back and forth from my chair to their parents’.
“What’s your name?” I asked the oldest.
“Alex. I’m five.”
“Oh, I have a son named Alex. He’s twelve.”
He continued covering my feet with sand until his parents walked by on their way to the water’s edge.
“I’m going in with my parents.”
“Okay.”
“My little brother HATES the water—he doesn’t go in ever.”