Heaven Come Down

If you clicked on the link to read this, I'll bet you did so because of the title.  I'd also bet that you believe in Heaven as a real, tangible place.  I used to be very certain of it, then decided it might be a figurative place; I just wasn't sure.  Losing a loved one changes your perspective.  Mine was altered without any doubt when Laura died, 10 years ago this morning. 

If you were on the weekly email list during that time, you've heard some of these details, but I have an expanded group of readers from then, so let me tell you some of the things that happened in the final days when she was home.  I promise that you won't regret it; it's meant to be the opposite of depressing.

We brought Laura home under hospice care about four days after she collapsed, paralyzed from the cancer eating through her spinal column and skull.  But the person we brought home was hardly one I recognized.  Yes, she was on a lot of pain medication, but to look at her, you would think she was in the greatest of health:  her face was glowing like parchment lit by candles, the kind of glow I'd only seen on a few brides.  There was none of the ruddy complexion that vexed her so much.  In retrospect, I can only call the look she had as angelic in demeanor.  She was so very beautiful, and lots of visitors remarked that she "lit up the room."

After a couple of days, when that hateful disease started to affect the language center in Laura's brain, she stopped communicating except with monosyllabic responses, smiles, or frowns.  On the third day, she was unresponsive to any of us all day.  Then, at about 4 o'clock, Julie Potts, our own hospice nurse-angel, arrived.  When  Laura saw Julie, it was like the sun coming through the clouds; she smiled so brilliantly and began speaking in full sentences.  I recorded that conversation a few weeks after Laura's death so I would never forget it.

"Hi, Julie!  How are you?"

"Well, I'm fine!  How are you today?"

Laura's face glowed as she smiled and replied, "I'm gonna die!  I'm gonna die."

"How do you feel about that, honey?" Julie asked in her gentle way.

Again the bright smile:  "I'm OK!  I'm OK."

Julie put down her things and stepped up next to the bed.  At that point we had all gathered around her.  "Honey, have you seen angels?"

"Yes!"---with the smile of a child full of joy.

"Have you seen Jesus?"

"Yes!"

"Are there angels here with us now?"

"Oh, yes!  Lots."

"Are they pretty?"

"Yes.  Shiny!  Lots of colors."

"Do they want you to come with them?"

"Yes!!"

"Well, it's OK for you to go with them whenever you are ready.  We love you but we want you to know that it's OK to go.  Will you do that?"

"Yes."  All of us around the bed were quietly weeping at that point.   It was the most beautiful moment you can imagine.

We all spoke softly to her for a while.  Julie asked Laura what her favorite hymn was, to which she replied "Amazing Grace."  Julie got us all to sing it, and Laura sang along.  That was, to my knowledge, the last time she put more than just a couple of words together at a time.  Even as it was happening, I was aware of the magnitude of the gift she was giving us, the peace and hope she was leaving for us.

The next day, Laura was vocalizing all day, sometimes single notes, sometimes little trills.  Her sister Peggy asked her if she was singing with the angels, and she answered with a clear, "Yes."  At some point, Peggy asked her how she was doing, and Laura beamed, "I live!"  We all knew that she meant forever, spiritually, she would live.

That evening, I laid my head on the bed next to her and spoke to her quietly about the things we'd always said:  how lucky we were to have had such a friendship, since most people don't even know they can have a friendship as deep as ours; that I would always know she was watching over me, and I'd try to make her proud in every single thing I did; that I'd miss her every day for the rest of my life, but it was absolutely OK for her to go when she was ready; that I loved her with everything my heart could hold, full and running over.  And then the last words she said to me, looking me right in the eyes:  "Love you."

After that evening, Laura went into a coma, but her body continued to fight for five days.  The cats bedded down with her, as they always did, and for the most part, they didn't go on their usual tears through the house.  Figaro was still on the bed with Laura when she passed and refused to move until we picked her up.

For the last three days before Laura died, a pair of doves roosted on the deck outside the living room, in plain view of her and anyone else in the room.  Though we had many birds at our house, none had ever done that, and they never did it again after she died.

That final morning, I took my usual fistful of vitamins and pills and then fixed a bowl of cereal.  I took it to the chair next to the head of Laura's bed.  Though she'd been unconscious for days, I still talked to her.  I said, "OK, I took my pills and I'm eating some cereal to keep all of 'em down there."  For years, she'd asked me about those two things every day, so I just told her like I normally would.  I looked at her, took a bite, and looked down at a magazine in my lap.  I picked up another bite.  And then, for some reason, as I lifted my spoon toward my mouth, I looked over at her and put the spoon back down.  I watched her for several seconds, and she didn't breathe again.  It was such a smooth transition, so peaceful, that I could only be glad that she had gone with the angels, that she was able to do it in dignity and tranquility.

I will never know the joy of giving birth, but I know what it is to step to the precipice of death with a person you love beyond measure, and the two experiences are strangely similar.  The prospect of death used to terrify me, but Laura showed me something different.  You see, I never knew until she proved it that we don't so much go to Heaven; Heaven comes down for us.  Heaven holds us in the light of all its candles and reassures those who go and those who are there when they go that everything will be fine.  Heaven helps us sing together and sends doves and angels as signs.  Heaven doesn't wait at the top of the stairs, tapping a foot impatiently.  I never imagined the grace of death, until Laura died, and I saw Heaven come down for her, and for us all.