Until I Hold You Again

I was given permission to spend the night at the hospital at my husband’s bedside. Four years prior he had been diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). This was the night that he was expected to die. A bedside vigil was thought by all to be the most appropriate thing to do. He was already taken off the respirator. All life supports had been removed.

This was the time and place I had been dreading for so long. Just one week prior I had been informed by the doctors that they would perform a surgical process on my husband, Albert (I’ll call him Al). The process would allow them to extract outside, live lung tissue from Al’s body. They (the doctors) had already biopsied tissue from the inside of his lungs by way of an oral process one month earlier. They needed to follow through with the surgery while he was still alive. I lodged a vehement argument with the doctors that they should not cut Al because he was just too weak and frail. All my pleading for over an hour was to no avail, and the surgery went forward.

Now here I was at the hospital waiting for my darling husband to die. This was the greatest challenge to every emotion in my body that I had ever felt. The team of doctors who had worked so hard to save Al’s life, even in light of the 20% odds that he would survive, were now giving him up. They were giving him only minutes to live.

As I prepared to lie down on a chair next to my love for the last time a strange thing happened. As quickly as blinking an eye, like a sudden burst of spiritual energy I had a critical urge to get up and go home. There was an invisible tug at my heart to leave the hospital. I informed my husband’s nurse that I would not spend the night there. She appeared stunned. "You mean you’re leaving?" She asked. "I am," I replied firmly.

It was nearly midnight when I left the hospital after taking what was supposed to be my last look at my husband alive. I kissed him as he slept, and I walked out of the room and out of the hospital broken and torn. For surely when I return, he will be dead, I kept thinking. Somehow I just didn’t want to see it.

Arriving home on that very cold, lonely December night, I felt that I was walking from my garage into a morgue. A soft snow was falling, and the chimney smoke from the neighboring homes was little comfort for a holiday season which was turning into a gloomy horrible season.

The house was so dark and quiet. I walked in shedding my outer clothes, letting them drop whereever they would. I wanted to scream to the top of my voice, "God, don’t do this to me. Don’t do this to our children and our grandchildren. Don’t do it to this community. We all need Al so much. Please, please dear God, don’t do this to Al."

I knew I had to get a hold of myself. Just get a grip. For this is no way to talk to god. You pray to him in a formal, civil manner, more a formality than a give and take conversational exchange. Well, this was the night that I would get to know God as I had never known him before.

I went directly to my bedroom. That’s the place where I feel most secure, most private and intimate. It is my ‘Secret Closet’. It’s the place where Al and I have bowed on our knees so many times when we needed to communicate with our god.

I fell to my knees, totally surrendered, everything inside of me reduced to emotional shambles. The tears began to flow. I tried to pray, but no words would come. I crawled around the room, around our bed, struggling with all my might to touch the very heart of god with my lamentations and groans.

Suddenly, I found myself rising from my knees as though invisible hands were lifting me. I stopped crying and began to simply talk. Yes, I started to talk to god. A common saying often voiced among fellow Christian believers is that "God does not put a burden on us that’s more than we can bear." Oh! How I want to believe this. And so as I hovered somewhere between fear and faith I said solemnly to God, "Lord, I know you’ve heard me before, and here I am again. Please hear me now. Please don’t take my husband. Don’t let my Albert die. I need him so. Lord, you have made many promises in your Holy Word (the Bible) to those of us who believe and have faith in you. Well, I do believe. I do have faith in you."

My mind raced back to the many times when Al and I faced seemingly impossible circumstances in our life. We prayed and everything worked out fine. But it’s now that we really, really need a miracle. So I walked around our bedroom, and I continued my dialogue with God. I was dry-eyed and earnest. Everything I had was on-the-line. I said, "Lord, I have devoted my life to you. I have placed my family in your hands. My Albert has worked so hard for the children and for me. He has been so faithful to his family, and so dedicated to his church and to you, his Lord. Please allow him to live a while longer. Lord I can’t do it all by myself. I can’t run that bakery, and I don’t know how to fix a leaky roof or use a snowblower. I just can’t do it. I love my Albert. I need him so. Your divine word proclaims that, ‘God is not a man that he should lie.......’Numbers 23:19, (Holy Bible) KJV.

If you, lord, do not put on us burdens more than we can bear, that’s a divine promise. Then please don’t let my husband die, because if you do, I can’t bear it. I would rather die than live without him."

I do not recall just how long I prayed, but that night I talked with god in prayer, and somehow I knew he was talking back to me. I concluded with one final verbal leap of faith. I said, "Now lord, I’m going to sleep. When I wake up, my Albert will be alive." What a confident feeling I experienced at that very moment.