We talked about dying today, four of us, all fairly young, with much life ahead of us—a near-father, a college student, two out-of-college-and-dreaming girls. It was mostly a joke, really.
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to die soon," he told us. "I ate cantaloupe the other day."
"To die is gain," smirked my sister, but despite her dancing eyes, we all knew her words were true.
"Do we really think that, though?" the oldest one asked. "Do you think if Jesus walked in here and gave you the choice, you'd go right now?"
I didn't hear much else they said. I started thinking about my grandfather.
About thirty-three years ago, he had his first heart attack. They rushed him away, into the belly of the emergency room, and not long afterwards my grandmother heard the words echo through the intercom. Code blue. She was hospital-lingo illiterate, but her friend wasn't. They didn't know what exactly was happening, or to whom it was happening.
Neither did my grandfather. He wasn't afraid; he wasn't in pain or even discomfort. Instead, he said later, he felt calm, peaceful. He didn't see bright lights, or hear voices, or see faces. It seemed to him that he was standing on the bank of a river, so wide he couldn't see the other shore. There was no visible person next to him, and no booming voice . . . but a thought crossed into his mind.
Do you want to come now, or stay?
He thought about it. And then he said, I think I want to see my youngest boy grow up.
A horrible pain ripped through his skull, and he was back. They'd shocked his heart back into rhythm, saved his life, they said. He lived twenty-three more years, long enough to see his nine-year old son grow up, and even to meet that son's two oldest boys.
I think about it now, through the safety and ease of time. What if he had said, I want to go now? What if he had never emerged from that trauma room? What if my grandmother had been left a widow before fifty? What if my mother and aunt and uncles had all been fatherless before I was born? What if I had never met my grandpa, this man who terrified and entertained and emboldened me all at once? God knows life would have been quite different. Ten years after his death, my grandfather is still one of the most important men in my life. He showed us all what it meant to be father and grandfather and friend and husband proudly and strongly, without apology or fear. And he did everything with the knowledge that the only Person he truly answered to was God Himself.
I wonder if that encounter, on the emergency room table, made him more aware of that.
Do you want to come now, or stay?
That last day when he lay in the hospital bed—fingernails and arms turning blue, breath more and more shallow each second, middle son and eldest daughter and wife at his side—I wonder if he heard the same whisper. I don't think it was a question, if the whisper did come that day.
I think it was a definite irresistible call.
Your time is done now; you've accomplished all I meant you to do.
Come Home now; come Home.
I wonder what I would say, given the same choice. Would I choose to leave, to go on to what I know to be a happier and brighter and safer existence? Or would I look back, see the unfinished business, and choose to stay?
It's a terrible responsibility. Which is why, I think, God usually doesn't ask if we're done with this thing we call earthly life. He doesn't usually ask, because He knows more and better than we do.
He just calls.
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