There’s a friend of mine lying in a hospital bed not very far from where I’m typing this and by the time you read this it is likely that she will be dead. Not dead in the eternal sense but certainly the body that she has now will be gone. Every hour that goes by I wait for the phone call that will bring the inevitable.
The final chapter started on Friday when I received a phone call from another friend saying that Annette had taken a turn for the worse and was not expected to live more than a day. I hadn’t even known she was in hospital. I knew that Annette had been fighting a second round of cancer after apparently beating leukemia last year but I didn’t know to what stage the disease had progressed.
I immediately left work and walked down to the hospital because I knew that another friend of mine was there by herself having just heard the news with Annette. Sometimes the carers need our support more than the person who is dying. As I arrived at ICU one of Annette’s sons arrived and went in so I could spend some time with my other friend in the waiting room. I’m not one of Annette’s “inner circle” or family but I wanted to be there to support those that I could. After a time several of the pastors from church and another friend came down to see Annette. As Pastor Mark came out he beckoned to me and I was able to go in to say goodbye. Annette was fairly vague from Morphine but we talked about stuff, about heaven and what it would be like mostly as I recall. Annette and I both knew that she was going to a better place. As I left Annette, most likely for the last time, I told her that I would see her in heaven. With Annette you never have to wonder if she will get there, it’s obvious.
Friday night life group was hard in a way. Annette has been a member of the group I lead for about a year now and a number of the people there are close to her. It was a pretty somber mood. There were tears. Some of them were mine even. In other ways the fact that this was only temporary and that we would get to spend eternity with Annette helped is celebrate the person that she was, except she wasn’t gone, yet.
Over the weekend Annette’s condition improved. Those who went in to see her mentioned that she seemed much brighter and wasn’t even using an oxygen mask. My other friend from the hospital was telling me at church on Sunday how much they had laughed together the day before. Knowing Annette that didn’t surprise me.
I know that because of the weekend there are a number of people believing for the miraculous, that Annette could be healed. I know God can do it but somehow I think that maybe her time on earth is at an end and that we will catch up in heaven. Sometimes the gap between faith and denial is a very thin line indeed but so is the gap between realism and doubt. I’ll keep praying.
Today Annette is worse and I think that sometime soon I will hear that she is no longer with us. We are going to miss her.
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on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under christian, life.
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There’s a friend of mine lying in a hospital bed not very far from where I’m typing this and by the time you read this it is likely that she will be dead. Not dead in the eternal sense but certainly the body that she has now will be gone. Every hour that goes by I wait for the phone call that will bring the inevitable.
The final chapter started on Friday when I received a phone call from another friend saying that Annette had taken a turn for the worse and was not expected to live more than a day. I hadn’t even known she was in hospital. I knew that Annette had been fighting a second round of cancer after apparently beating leukemia last year but I didn’t know to what stage the disease had progressed.
I immediately left work and walked down to the hospital because I knew that another friend of mine was there by herself having just heard the news with Annette. Sometimes the carers need our support more than the person who is dying. As I arrived at ICU one of Annette’s sons arrived and went in so I could spend some time with my other friend in the waiting room. I’m not one of Annette’s “inner circle” or family but I wanted to be there to support those that I could. After a time several of the pastors from church and another friend came down to see Annette. As Pastor Mark came out he beckoned to me and I was able to go in to say goodbye. Annette was fairly vague from Morphine but we talked about stuff, about heaven and what it would be like mostly as I recall. Annette and I both knew that she was going to a better place. As I left Annette, most likely for the last time, I told her that I would see her in heaven. With Annette you never have to wonder if she will get there, it’s obvious.
Friday night life group was hard in a way. Annette has been a member of the group I lead for about a year now and a number of the people there are close to her. It was a pretty somber mood. There were tears. Some of them were mine even. In other ways the fact that this was only temporary and that we would get to spend eternity with Annette helped is celebrate the person that she was, except she wasn’t gone, yet.
Over the weekend Annette’s condition improved. Those who went in to see her mentioned that she seemed much brighter and wasn’t even using an oxygen mask. My other friend from the hospital was telling me at church on Sunday how much they had laughed together the day before. Knowing Annette that didn’t surprise me.
I know that because of the weekend there are a number of people believing for the miraculous, that Annette could be healed. I know God can do it but somehow I think that maybe her time on earth is at an end and that we will catch up in heaven. Sometimes the gap between faith and denial is a very thin line indeed but so is the gap between realism and doubt. I’ll keep praying.
Today Annette is worse and I think that sometime soon I will hear that she is no longer with us. We are going to miss her.
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under christian, life.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
