God Drives a Tow Truck (15 page)

We wandered further from the home, meandering over the paths. Christopher’s pale face was dappled by the sunlight peeking through the trees. The air was so clean, a gentle breeze tickling our faces. I glanced at the oxygen gauge. The needle pointed to
empty
. Not just the beginning of the red zone. It pointed as far to the left as it could go. The tank was out of oxygen.

When and how had that happened!? We had definitely not been out more than twenty minutes.

“We need to hightail it back now,” I screeched to Asherel, with my usual calm, measured response to disaster.

“Why?” she asked to my back as I hurtled the heavy wheelchair over the cracked sidewalk. Christopher’s head bounced back and forth as we skittered and tumbled over the uneven surface. He was laughing harder now, with the unexpected exciting, jostling ride. His skin still looked pink and warm. He didn’t look like someone who wasn’t able to breathe.

“Christopher is out of oxygen!” I called back.

I jogged faster, pushing the behemoth chair. Christopher laughed with great bursts of delight, as the chair catapulted over the cracks. I sprinted back up the ramp, and into the building. The elevator was impossibly slow, though I punched the buttons over and over, watching Christopher breathe in, breathe out. The elevator finally arrived, and the three of us hurried on.

“Go, go, go,” I mumbled.

Christopher’s blue eyes twinkled. With a creak and groan, the doors opened and disgorged us at last onto the second level floor.

“Christopher is out of oxygen!” I cried, galloping to the nurse’s station.

The nurse glanced up from her paperwork, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose.

“No, that is impossible”, she said, glancing at Christopher with his happy, pink face. She looked back down at her charts.

“It says it is empty,” I insisted.

With a sigh, she stood up slowly, strolled lazily around the corner of the counter, and pushed her glasses up. She peered at the oxygen gauge. Startling, she grabbed the chair handles and ran down the hall, pushing the heavy chair. We followed. She veered into his room and hurriedly switched the plastic tube from the wheelchair tank to the oxygen tank at his bedside. She was muttering to herself the whole time how this was not possible. I don’t know why Christopher never struggled to breathe during that episode, but I was relieved as the nurse settled him back in his bed, and we were no longer responsible for his hold on life.

Despite that scare, we took Christopher to the park often. While he never told us with words, his sparkling blue eyes and laughter assured us he relished those few moments of fresh air, whispering trees, and sunshine in the little park. We came to enjoy his silent communion with us, his laughing eyes, and uncomplaining disposition. The nurse never reproached us again about taking the time to have him ready for our outings. And she always strapped a
full
oxygen tank on the wheelchair.

Sadly, his respiratory condition continued to worsen. After multiple bouts with pneumonia, he was prescribed steroids to try to battle the shutting down of his organs. It did not matter. He grew sicker, and his face swelled with fluid retention. Tanya tried to be with him as much as possible; having been told it would not be long before he died. She did not want him to die alone. Unfortunately, with two other children at home, it was not possible for her to be there as much as she wanted.

That is how one evening, I ended up at his bedside vigil. I had dropped Matt, my second son, at the nearby courthouse for his volunteer work. I promised Tanya that I would stay with Christopher for an hour until I needed to retrieve Matt. Christopher slept nearly the whole time I was there. As his organs slowly deteriorated, and his medication was increased, he slept for longer and longer periods. Nonetheless, I talked with him, sang to him a little, and then sat quietly reading a book. The nurse came in and checked all his vital signs.

“How is he?” I asked softly.

“He’s fine, his vitals are strong.”

“I haven’t had dinner and need to pick my son up soon. Do you think he will be fine, if I leave now?”

“Of course,” she answered, “He will just sleep. He’s doing well. Won’t do anyone any good for you to pass out with hunger.” She smiled kindly.

It was past dinner time, but honestly, I don’t think I was in danger from fainting from hunger, so much as from fear. The thought that Christopher might die before my very eyes had not been comforting. I had been trembling much of the time I was there.

Please don’t die
, I had been whispering in my heart.
I don’t think I can bear to see you die
.

I had never experienced death first hand, except of insects and pets. The thought of being with a person dying terrified me. I was grateful to leave. Kissing his forehead, I whispered, “Goodbye Christopher,” and hurried down the hall. As I stepped out into the cold night, I expelled a deep cloud of vapor. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath.

Matt had a horrible cold, which had worsened. I arrived at the courthouse where he volunteered as a teen attorney in Teen Court. He settled in the car, glad to be heading home. He slumped in the seat, leaning his head back.

“I feel awful,” he said, closing his eyes.

My cell phone rang. It was Tanya, though I could hardly recognize her voice through her sobs.

“Christopher just passed!” she cried.

I could not believe it. I had just left him, not fifteen minutes ago. He had been fine.

“What? How? I was just there! The nurse said he was fine…Oh Tanya, I am so sorry!”

I had failed my friend. If I had stayed a few minutes longer, he would not have had to face death alone.

“Dawn is with him,” she said, “She is waiting with him until we get there. She is pretty broken up though. She was with him when he died.”

Dawn? She was another friend of Tanya’s and we were trying to “take turns” being with Christopher during these hard past few weeks. I had not seen Dawn when I was there. I glanced at my sick son. I could do nothing more for Christopher. I needed to bring my son home.

After getting off the phone with Tanya, I called Dawn’s cell phone. She answered, her voice calm and even peaceful. She told me that she had been downtown with her daughter, and then had felt an overwhelming sense that she needed to see Christopher. She had wanted to head home, but instead, felt a persistent tug in her spirit to check on Christopher. She must have arrived just as I left. He died moments after she arrived, while she was with him. He had not died alone, after all.

Later, I told Dawn how awful I felt that I had let Tanya down, that I had not stayed there just a few more moments.

“I was so frightened the whole time I was there,” I admitted to her, “I didn’t want to see him die.”

Dawn gently said, “I suspect Christopher knew that. He spared you what you felt you couldn’t bear. That’s why God called me to be there, Vicky. I was with my mother just last month when she died. It was hard, but I was not afraid. I was not afraid for Christopher to die, either. I was just happy he was out of pain, and with Jesus.

“God knew what you could handle,” she comforted me, “And I
knew
He wanted me there. It all worked out just as He planned. Please don’t be hard on yourself.”

I missed Christopher, though I was grateful he was no longer suffering. I imagined him running in Heaven with a new body, no spasms and contortions to slow his progress. He would be completely healed and perfect, new in every way. Well, in every way except one…. I don’t think even Heaven could have improved on his smile.

I had failed Tanya, but God had covered my inadequacy again. Like those branches in the sky that Christopher loved so much, the lives of all of us were linked and intertwined, stretching tangled limbs in a pattern perfectly designed.

Chapter Twenty Two

Grasping God’s Love

Psalm 26:2-3

²
Test me, LORD, and try me,
   examine my heart and my mind;
³
for I have always been mindful of your unfailing love
   and have lived in reliance on your faithfulness.

“It is not possible,” said the veterinarian, “But nonetheless it is true. The cancer is gone. There is no trace of it.”

I am not often smacked over the head with God’s miracles. Usually they require a subtler sensitivity, a practiced and prayer-bathed hunt. I don’t know why God places such an emphasis on faith. It would seem so much simpler if He wanted us to know He was there if He would just do a Reality Television Show. He could call it “American Idol- the
Real
One.” Anyone could be on the show, but they would have to pit their talents against God. Each week there would be a different theme. Week one could be “Parting the Red Sea”. Week two might involve creating a universe, and then the clincher, for the finale week, it could be “Catching a Cockroach before it escapes into the linen closet.”

But God wisely chooses not to listen to most of my suggestions, and thus, we are to know Him by faith, which is defined in the Bible as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”(Hebrews 11:1) This presents inestimable obstacles for people who like to be certain only of what they
do
see. Somehow, they can make a leap of faith that protein strands combined and suddenly became complex enough to look around and know that they were looking around, but those same folks cannot have faith that consciousness was actually designed.

My parents were not believers when their beloved dog Spots, developed a strange growth. With great dismay, they brought her to Cornell, one of the finest clinics for dog care in upstate NY. The horrible results of the biopsy confirmed their worst fears- it was cancer.

They were so distraught that they overcame their usual reticence about approaching a God they could not see, therefore could not trust was there, and asked us to pray for Spots in her follow up visit. At this visit, it would be determined what would be the best course of action, if any, that could be taken to save her. For anyone who is not a dog lover, the idea of spending thousands of dollars to save a dog’s life is ludicrous. But for all of us who have been loved by a dog, it is an investment with incalculable return.

At the follow up appointment, a second biopsy was taken. Meanwhile, my sisters and I assured Mom we would pray.

“God can work a miracle,” I told her, “But if He heals her, will you agree to go to church?”

“For how long?” she countered.

“A year.”

“OK, it’s a deal.”

Now if this were a book on sound theology, I am quite sure this chapter would be red-lined. Despite my unorthodox approach to securing a miracle, it is not without precedence. When Gideon, one of the acknowledged heroes of faith in the Old Testament was a little shaky about going into battle, he asked God not once, but twice, to prove that God was real and was going to bless the outcome:

Judges 6:39
Then
Gideon
said to God, "Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the
fleece
. This time make the
fleece
dry and the ground covered with dew."

Remarkably, God complied with Gideon’s request; Gideon went on to battle victoriously, and is listed in Hebrews as one of the heroes of faith. In my opinion, he showed an alarming
lack
of faith, as well as chutzpah, in asking God to prove He was real by making some wool wet and then dry. So I was just trying to emulate Gideon in “fleecing God” with my prayer for a dog’s healing in exchange for my parents’ darkening the door of a church.

We prayed with vigor, and the next week my mom called with the astonishing news. Spots’ biopsy results had returned. She was cancer free. The doctor could not understand, felt it was impossible, but there it was. The newly benign cyst was drained, and Spots lived on for many more years.

Acknowledging their end of the bargain, my parents attended church for a year. They went to a Unitarian church, where they would be most able to avoid any direct embarrassing mention of God. It would not have been my choice, but I hoped that it might yet give them a hunger for the Lord.