My Dad's Journey Toward Home

Sometimes the journey home to heaven seems like a long and trying road. Our family has experienced that fact in the past week. This past Thursday my Dad fell and broke his wrists. He scrapped and cut his face too. He was carried to the hospital, where he was admitted.

On Friday, his heart stopped and the emergency room team resuscitated him. Dad has had a long standing "Do Not Resuscitate" order, but they didn't know it. Before my sister realized what had happened, they had him on a respirator. When he woke up, he wasn't happy at all about what they had done. He indicated that he wanted it to be taken away from him immediately.

Because he had a living will ordering that this type procedure not be done, they removed the respirator on Monday morning. To everybody's surprise, he didn't die. On Tuesday, because there was nothing more for the hospital to do, they released him and he was transferred to a nursing home.

"I never wanted the last chapter of my life to be like this," my Dad said yesterday. Dad told me a few weeks ago that he so much wanted to go on to heaven. "I'm ready to reach my destination, he said. "I'm not looking forward to the trip (dying), but am ready to get where I'm going."

Dad has been a Christian since I was a baby. Even now, his faith sustains him as he travels what appears to be a final hard stretch of road leading to the boundaries of heaven. His faith is strong. His sense of humor is solidly intact. (When they took him off the respirator he said, "How am I supposed to go to yard sales like this?") His love for his family is evident. In what he has called "the last chapter," he exemplifies the qualities I hope to show until my final breath.

Pray for my Dad. Pray for our family. He wants to go home to heaven. Not in a morbid sort of way, but in a good way -- like a man who has finished his course and is now ready to go home. We love my Dad and will miss him greatly when our Father grants him the desire of his heart. Ours will break, but his will be more full of joy than it has ever been in this world.