Day 45

 

Joy Comes In The Morning

 

Weeping my remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.

 

Psalm 30:5

 

 

When Ethan was about 6 months old Cathy began to have problems. She began to have severe headaches that turned out to be a side effect of one of the medications she was on. Her new heart was doing fine but she started having trouble with being immunosuppressed, again because of medication she was on. The medicines had to be taken though or her body would reject her heart.

 

She went into the hospital in late summer and was in most of the fall. On the transplant floor no children were allowed so she could not see Ethan. Once in a while they helped her go to the hospital lobby where I could bring Ethan in to see her. At Halloween I dressed Ethan up in a pumpkin costume and she was able to come down to the lobby and see him.

 

Around Thanksgiving her health improved enough for her to come home. At Christmas, though she was very weak, she took Ethan up to Missouri to her home town to show him off. Even then I sensed it was some sort of a "farewell tour." The girl that had left Missouri at 19 with incurable cancer had come to show how she, with God's help, had overcome cancer, lived to get married and had a child.

 

In early January she was back in the hospital. Every time she had been in the hospital before, even leading up to the heart transplant, I had always been confident of her recovery. She had always been such a courageous fighter but something had changed. She was tired. She had accomplished so much after being given a death sentence at age 19 and she had just seemed to have finally lost that special spark that drove her to conquer death.

 

Her condition declined. It was getting desperate and I began to feel her slipping away. In late February she went into a coma. After about a week she woke up. She spoke of a vision of heaven that she had but really couldn't talk about it because of the emotion involved. The next day was Ethan's first birthday and I told her I would take him to the livestock show in the morning and videotape him with the animals. In the afternoon I would bring the video tape and get a TV and a VCR in her hospital room so she could see her baby. She said to me, "Take care of our son." It was the last thing I would ever hear her say.

 

By the time I got to the hospital the next day she had gone back into a coma. She was in liver failure and was transferred to another hospital that had an ICU just for patients with that problem.

 

A CAT scan was done of her brain one day and everything was clear. Two days later another was done. The second scan showed what looked like a large tea stain on her brain. It was some sort of fungus I was told. It was irreversible. They asked me if the need should arise should they resuscitate her? I told then no - no more medication, just keep feeding her. Two days later I was called early in the morning and informed that all her brain activity had ceased in the night and that I needed to come and give them permission to turn off the machines. Her parents and I went to the hospital and said our goodbyes. They turned off the machines and her heart beat lasted for a few minutes more and then she was gone.

 

Anticipating her death was actually worse for me than her dying. God gives us grace when we need it. Cathy was 31 years old, we had been married for 7 years. She had been given a death sentence at age 19 and lived to give me the greatest gift (outside my salvation) I have ever received, my son. Her courage and love that led her to risk her life so that he might be born was unfathomable.

 

In a picture frame on my son's wall is her picture and a poem she wrote when facing death at age 20.

 

At death remember my life.

Remember not how soon I died

but how long I lived.

 

The quality of live is not in the number of days one lives

but in living those days to the fullest.

 

When you look back on my life

don't be sad ...

Be happy, I was happy.

 

Life is good. Life is worth living.

 

"Joy comes in the morning."

 

Cathy 1984

 

 

Upon Further Review:

 

Read 1 Corinthians 15:50-58

 

• What metaphor does Paul use when he describes the change that happens at the resurrection?
• Who gives us victory over death?
• Therefore, in light of the promise of the resurrection, what should we do?