I knew that one day we would get the phone call. I just didn’t know when or how I would feel. As the years went on, he wasn’t living. He hadn’t for a long long time. He hasn’t spoken for several years, hasn’t walked for even longer. His muscles were starting to atrophy and he spent less and less time awake. But when I did get the call, I still wasn’t prepared. It came at 1:48 am on January 18. I heard my phone buzzing and I thought it was my alarm waking me up, even though I felt like I had just drifted to sleep. I realized my phone was ringing and I saw it was the Veterans Home. I had a sickening feeling and could not answer. I had hoped the message they left would be an absent-minded nurse not realizing the time, and had called to tell me they were starting him on some new ointment. I listened to the voicemail hoping I would get the standard “Everything’s ok, but…” message. But that did not happen. Instead, I heard the nurse say to call her back as soon as possible, and she would try my home phone next. This was it. I couldn’t even function when I tried to call back. I couldn’t remember the number she left on the voicemail and I dialed wrong. I didn’t realize until I got someone else’s voicemail, and then felt bad for calling at that hour. I finally got the number right and the nurse told me that the staff noticed when checking on him that he was barely breathing. They tried giving him some oxygen, but it didn’t help. They sat with him and waited. As she was explaining this, I kept thinking she was going to say he was still hanging in there, or he was improving. It was such a blow when she said the words that he had passed at 1:45 am. And then to look at my clock and see it was only minutes ago. I didn’t know how to feel. I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep, but I didn’t want to wake anyone either. I just laid there thinking how unfair everything was. It’s not like he was better off being here, so I didn’t want him to stay. He missed out on so much for so long, and we would never get that back even if he did stay. I started thinking about how there were so many rough patches, and would he go straight to Heaven? I feel like the stuff he went through wasn’t really his fault, it was the disease. But I’m not the one to decide that in the end. I just laid in bed praying for some kind of sign he was ok, but felt silly, knowing you don’t always get one. I was laying in my dark room and my computer woke up from sleep mode and brightened my room. It was unusual, but not unheard of, so I ignored it for awhile. But then I got up because I was so restless. I decided to check my email to see the last message that came in, that was closest to the time he had passed. I found it was from a prayer site that I had subscribed to. I get daily emails from them that I never open (but should). So this time I opened it, and this is what I found:
Jesus Calls Levi and Eats With Sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside
the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As
he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s
booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at
Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his
disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When
the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners
and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax
collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to
them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not
come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
I felt instant peace.
I still hate that he had to suffer for so long and miss out on so many
things, but I feel relief that he is no longer miserable and is reunited with
his family in Heaven. I imagine he is
young and happy, and I hope to see him again one day.
