Bound for Glory

December 2015

Continued from The Agony

As we were leaving the hospital Sunday night, the nurse gave us a piece of paper on which a phone number was handwritten. As I stared at the unfamiliar number, she told me it was Roma’s boss. We had never met this man, and only knew his name from Roma’s stories of his workdays. Bobby had called the hospital so many times to ask about Roma’s condition, which they were not permitted to share, they requested he quit calling. They promised they would give us his number and we would call him, if we wished. It was almost midnight when we left, too late to call Bobby. I suspect Bobby was sleepless and would have welcomed a call at any hour, but we were too dazed to talk to anyone else.

The next morning before we returned to the hospital, Bruce called Bobby. As soon as Bruce introduced himself,  I could hear Bobby’s eager voice asking, “How’s Roma?” When Bruce told this stranger that Roma wasn’t going to recover, Bobby started crying on his end, as his grief brought a new wave of my own.

Before we left home to return to the hospital, I listened to a voice mail. Our financial adviser called with a urgent message. She was also a friend of my sister and she had heard the grim news.  She sounded desperate, urging us not to give up. Her own son had been declared “brain dead” in 1994. Doctors discussed organ donation with her. But her son survived! He was doing okay, although he did suffer a traumatic brain injury which had lasting consequences.  She said everyone in her office had stopped work to pray together for Roma, a boy they had never met. She gave me this verse to hang onto.  “God has not given us a Spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7

Then Kellie called. She hadn’t checked her phone until hours after I sent the first hysterical text, and even then didn’t accept the diagnosis that the injury “wasn’t compatible with life.” Not until she got my message asking her to ask her Russian-speaking friend to translate a message for Liana and Lia did she know that it appeared Roma wasn’t going to live. Even then she couldn’t grasp it. “Mom, Roma can’t be dead. God isn’t done using him.”

So, with another mother who had been told her son wouldn’t survive and Kellie encouraging me not to lose hope, we headed to the hospital, praying for a miracle, half expecting Roma to be sitting up in bed, laughing when we entered his room, telling me I worry too much.

Bruce and I prayed for a miracle all the way to the hospital, an hour away, but when we were directed to his new room on a different floor, again in room number seven, Roma didn’t appear to be rallying.  

A friend who is a nurse, Teri, met us at the hospital just hours after the doctor called Roma’s “time of death” at December 7, 2015 at 7:16 am before we arrived, little had changed, except his beautiful face was cleaned up a bit and the swelling was down. He looked better, like he was resting. How could he be “dead.” I leaned over his warm chest, rising and falling with even breaths, and spoke love into his ear. When the nurses mentioned organ donation, continuing our conversation of the night before, I stopped them abruptly, telling them we weren’t willing to talk about that yet. Maybe God was still going to give us a dramatic miracle.

Our nurse friend, Teri, so kind and gentle, told me I didn’t have to hurry, that we should let everyone know we wanted more time.  “Maybe it would help if you saw the brain scans,” she suggested. We agreed that that might help.  

A compassionate doctor met with us in a private room and went slowly, image by image of Roma’s brain scans. Even though I don’t know much about brains, even I could tell Roma’s scan wasn’t normal. He had first been electrocuted by low hanging wires, and fallen from a two story roof, unconscious to the sidewalk below, landing on his head. Although this seemed hopeless, I knew it wasn’t too big for God! I asked how long before they would need to harvest his organs. They would keep him alive for another 24-48 hours before his organs began to deteriorate. We reasoned that if God were going to deliver a miracle, surely that would be enough time. 

As we prepared to go home, I asked Bruce if we could come back the next day. My dear husband broke down. I realized the depth of his own pain. “I can’t do this another day,” he said. “To sit here all day. . .” Tears streamed down his cheeks. Bruce is a scientist, and he knew Roma wasn’t going to make it.

Poor Bruce. He had driven four hours the night before, in silence, having to be mindful of us arriving safely, as I sobbed and wailed, texted friends, made some phone calls, and sobbed and wailed.

I can only write about my emotions. I’m sure Bruce’s heartbreak is equally poignant. We never talk much about that night. I know how I felt. I do not know all what went on in my husband’s head and heart. I know it was every bit as excruciating for him. He had to be strong for the rest of us. And Bruce is the strongest man I know. Finally we came to the hard realization that Roma had to be freed from a broken-beyond-repair brain. There would be no miraculous healing.

As if our driveway was being observed, when we got home that Monday night, the door bell started ringing. Friends and neighbors began arriving with food in hand and tear-stained smiling faces. The next morning, the steady stream of visitors  continued all day. And the flower deliveries. 

There is a bubble that encircles people during grief. At least that was the case with Bruce and me. It was nice to have all the people there, talking to each other, as I felt out-of-body, witnessing and not having to participate in all the conversations. I’m sure I did take part, but the “bubble” experience prevented it all from being too real.  

I remember at one point of waking up in the dream-world of hoping-this-is-a-nightmare, I had a sudden thought that Roma got on that train that we all will get on one day. How like impulsive Roma to rush to the front of the line. But somehow thinking of Roma on that train, bound for Glory, gave me some comfort. It was a visual on which I could cling.

One of our visiting friends who directed conversation in my direction as I zoned out, said, “Roma just got on an earlier train than we did.”

I turned and stared at her. Was she here earlier when I had that exact same thought? No, that was in the wee hours. I think. Did I say it aloud and she heard me?  I wish I could think clearly, but I just responded.  “I have had that same thought. About the train. Interesting.”

All these people. I had gotten a notebook out to record the food coming in. All these neighbors and people from the community who knew Roma better than they knew me. Roma, who never met a stranger, loved people, the boy who needed no last name. He always had a kind word and always made people feel important, like he really cared about them, because  he did.

Our visitors cleared out temporarily near 2:00 p.m. when we had an appointment with the funeral home. Our assignments for Roma’s service was to select 75 photos for Roma’s slide show, and select music to accompany it. We chose to have a Celebration of Life a week later, so we had some time. I hardly had time to be alone to go through photos. At my request, Roma’s friends started sharing photos of Roma I had never seen, so many of our choices came from what his friends posted on Facebook. The woman at the funeral home talked to us at length about Roma, getting to know him. When we saw the completed video days later, I knew Roma would be pleased. It opened with a football theme, and the long pass, just the kind he loved to catch.

In the late afternoon when the house was empty and quiet, sat in my sunroom, where I like to read, and picked up a book by my chair. It was a devotional, by  Louie Giglio. Roma had brought it home a year earlier when he returned from Atlanta. He was proud of his gift to me, which as probably a gift from our Nancy in Atlanta. I hadn’t read much of it over the past year, as I had my favorite devotions already. But, for some reason, I decided to go to the back, wondering what was written on the day Roma “died.” (How I hate that word!)

December 7 began “Be still and know that I am God.” That verse had become a Sacred Echo for me in the past two years. When I go to my War Room, my goal is to get to that place where I could let the world fall away, be still, and listen to God. I suffer from acute distraction and maybe a little, or more than a little, Attention Deficit Disorder. 

So that Psalm awakened me, and I read with anticipation of something Divine. 

There was much in that passage I could hang on to.

Then I turned the page. That’s when I saw it. Photos didn’t accompany every daily devotion, but on December 7, a very encouraging photo donned the next page. An empty train track with a cross in the back ground.

Roma’s train had left the station. He was Bound for Glory. And, in a day of many tears, that image made me smile. 

Continue, More light bulbs.