Celebrating Daddy’s Life…
One Last Lesson
My dad joined heaven Saturday at 4:07 p.m.
For the last six weeks of Daddy’s life, his hallucinations had become so vivid that sometimes they consumed 80% of our conversations. Some were heartbreaking. Others were so ridiculous that I finally decided the best thing to do was just participate.
Daddy had a group of friends who liked to stop by in the evenings to play games. Usually four or five of them. He made me keep cards and candy nearby, and whenever they arrived, he’d point toward the door so I’d know it was time to pass out treats.
I’d stopped asking questions. I just yelled “Catch!” and threw candy across the hallway to people only Daddy could see. The night nurses appreciated the sugar rush.
We basically played Guess Who? every night. Some nights Daddy knew the guests. Other nights they were apparently mine. Either way, somebody got candy.
But Tuesday night, Dad stopped eating and drinking. We knew what that meant. And while we were preparing ourselves to say goodbye, something happened we never expected.
Daddy’s mind became completely clear.
I don’t know if it was because they’d discontinued his medications and all the side effects that came with them, or if it was that rally people talk about before death. But if you hadn’t known Daddy was dying, you might have thought he was getting better.
He remembered things. He had a few shallow chuckles. He wanted to talk.
There was something almost impossible to comprehend about watching his body lose the strength to swallow even a sip of water while his mind was remembering conversations we’d had months earlier.
After weeks of never quite knowing which version of Daddy we’d find when we walked into his room, suddenly we didn’t have to wonder anymore.
And yet, there he was. Our daddy.
Wednesday night, I stayed so Mom could go home and get some rest. I thought we’d spend the night talking a little, resting when he could, and I’d be there to take care of whatever he needed.
I had no idea those hours would become some of the most precious of my life.
It was just the two of us. And somewhere in the middle of talking about his life and heaven, I found myself telling him something I’d been carrying around for a long time. I’d come that night to take care of Daddy. To help him be comfortable. To reassure him that it was okay to go home to Jesus.
And I meant it. I knew where he was going.
But sitting there beside him, I realized that knowing where Daddy was going didn’t make me any less afraid of the world he was leaving me in.
So I finally told him.
“Daddy, you’ve always been my security blanket. I’m afraid of how my life looks without you. I’m terrified, daddy.”
Because that’s what he’s always been to me.
For most of my life, when things got hard, I knew I could call mom and dad. And sometimes things got really hard. There were times we were trying to figure out how to feed an entire community when we barely had enough food for our own table.
And somehow, Mom and Dad were always there. They both had this stubborn refusal to believe that God couldn’t find a way. And for years, I believed it right along with them.
But here’s the thing…..
I’d spent my whole life watching God provide. And so much of that provision had come through my parents’ hands.
I knew God was faithful. I wasn’t questioning that. But I was beginning to wonder whether His reach extended beyond our household.
Because – what happens when the next impossible situation comes along and my parents aren’t there? When there are children who need to eat, when our personal funds barely have a balance, when the weight of the work is more than I can do alone?
And now I was sitting beside Daddy’s bed, watching him die. AND somewhere in that conversation I stopped feeling like the daughter who had come to comfort her dying father.
I was just his little girl again.
Looking up to him.
Just needing my daddy to make it all better.
Even as he grew older, when he couldn’t give me advice or help the way he used to, just knowing he was here made the world feel a little less frightening. I didn’t have to call him. I didn’t need him to fix anything.
I just needed to know he was still on this side of Heaven.
Now, Daddy had told me before that Jesus had always been his security blanket. Which, of course, I get. But that also sounded an awful lot like a Sunday School answer, and at that particular moment, I needed something more than a Bible lesson.
So instead of taking a much needed rest, he talked about Vietnam.
You see, I already knew he was in Bible college and pastoring a church when he was drafted. His family opposed the war, and when Dad refused to seek a dishonorable discharge, they disowned him.
He went to Vietnam, served his country, and when he came home, everything he’d ever known was gone. His family wasn’t waiting at the airport. There wasn’t a bedroom waiting for him at home. He had nowhere to go.
But the church he had been serving loved him dearly. And one of the women in that church was waiting for him when he returned. She and her husband took him in and eventually became my Mamaw and Papaw.
“You see, Jody Beth, I thought the same thing you’re thinking now. I did everything I was supposed to do, and yet I lost everything I ever knew. I was terrified.”
He told me that when he lost the people he thought would always be there, God already had someone else prepared for him. Someone who was waiting before he even knew he needed them.
“And when I lost your Mamaw and Papaw, He had somebody else. That’s how He took care of us. And I can tell you, what I’m saying is not a Sunday School answer.”
That night, dad could barely speak above a whisper. Every few sentences he had to stop and rest. Sometimes I had to use the little suction machine to clear his throat before he could continue.
But he kept talking. He shared just a few sacred moments from his life when Jesus had shown up. Times when God didn’t owe him a thing, and how He had never given up on him even when it would have been easy to do.
There were moments during those hours that I can only describe as holy. Moments I haven’t quite figured out how to share yet. And by the end of that night, he told me he could leave this world knowing he didn’t have to be my security blanket anymore.
Not because I wouldn’t need my daddy.
I will. I already do.
But because the God who had someone waiting at an airport for a young soldier coming home from Vietnam was already preparing people to walk beside his daughter.
God had given Daddy the peace of knowing his little girl was covered.
There’s one thing Daddy said in those final days that I can’t stop thinking about.
After 81 years of serving Christ, he was still wondering whether he’d truly been effective. Whether he’d done a good job. Whether the people he’d spent his life loving and teaching would be there to greet him when he got to heaven.
Effective?
There he was, barely able to whisper, and he was still changing the entire way I understood God’s graciousness. That night, God had answered a prayer Daddy had been praying for me. God didn’t owe him that. Not one thing. And yet, in His kindness, He let him see the answer with his own eyes before he joined Him in Heaven.
I had come to help Daddy find the courage to let go.
Instead, he was helping me find the courage to go on.
Daddy spent more than fifty years planting seeds in Haiti. Some grew into things he got to see. Others were planted in people whose lives took them far beyond his reach.
And I wonder how many people are walking around today who have no idea that something Daddy said or did years ago is still shaping their lives. I think Saturday will give us a little glimpse of that.
Because when I look around that room, I won’t just see people he loved and ministered to. I’ll see people who loved him back. People who prayed for him, encouraged him, and stepped in when he didn’t know what to do.
Some of you were the very people God used as Daddy’s security blankets. And I wonder how many times my parents were able to keep serving someone else because one of you had quietly taken care of them.
Because Mom and Dad didn’t do fifty years of ministry alone.
I wish Daddy could be there Saturday. I wish he could look around that room and see what I see. Maybe then he’d understand just how effective his life really was.
But then again, I suppose he’s beginning to see things from a much better perspective now.
And for those who can’t be with us Saturday, I know Daddy would tell you not to worry about missing one more gathering here on earth. He’s planning on seeing you at the next one.
After all, that was his greatest hope. That the people he loved here would be there with him.
In Lieu of Flowers
Haiti was home to Daddy for so much of his life. And the people there were never simply people he ministered to. They were his family.
In lieu of flowers, we’d love for donations to continue caring for the people and communities that meant so much to him. Both the Mole St. Nicolas community, where our family serves through Northwest Haiti Christian Mission, and the Port-de-Paix & Chansolme community, where Daddy poured so much of his life into serving through Waves of Mercy.
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