Living in the Spiritual

Some of you may have read this before...I wrote it in 2004 and wanted to put it here, too.

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Living in the Spiritual:
Since we lost our son Andrew on May 26,2003 I have done a lot of thinking about dying. In fact, I guess it started before that...during his course of Mitochondrial Disease. I have realized a few things...one is that the art of grieving is not alive and well in America and two, many Christians have lost the ability to look beyond the physical and see the spiritual.

We in America have become arrogant...we think we are untouchable...we have not put our trust in God, we have put our trust in medical advances. We have this overwhelming idea that life in America is generally good. I find American Christians to be even more convinced of this. They tend to think if they live ‘the good Christian life’ and are a good person, then God will make everything in their lives smooth and easy.

Lets take a look back to the first part of the 20th century and see what it was like then. Death and dying were a part of every day life. People often died at home and were kept at home until they were buried. Death was much more common and no one was safe...young and old, sick and well, anyone was susceptible. These days death, especially an early one, is out of the ordinary. We are deluded into thinking it happens rarely and only then to the old and sick, or to those who have ‘invited it’. We also forget that in many other countries, it is still a normal part of their everyday experience. I expect that when someone was caring for a sick child or husband at the turn of the century, several things happened. I expect that people weren’t found saying “If there is anything I can do let me know”...instead they asked “If there is anything ELSE I can do, let me know.” I imagine this was after they already helped with household chores, errands and taking care of children. They didn’t wait to be asked or put the burden of asking on the bereaved...they simply knew what to do. I imagine that when that person died, everyone, particularly women (who minister only as women can), surrounded the mother or wife and enveloped her in love, making her life as easy as possible.

Also you will find that people were not rushed to grieve. I was asked just weeks after Andrew died ‘oh that? You are still having a hard time?” I mean honestly, do we as Americans expect everyone to be machines now? A Hundred years ago, you would have found mourning rituals...not just a three day ‘event’ until the funeral was over. You were expected to wear black for a certain amount of time, then grey and then mauve. For people who lost children, there was mourning jewelry, often brooches that usually contained a lock of the child's hair. Grieving was much more extravagant.

Wonder what is was like if you were a Christian? I think most people back then had some belief in God. They were expected to place their trust in God during these times, but the vastness of their loss was also acknowledged in a myriad of ways, even putting black borders on their writing paper. Sympathy was strong...compassion, the norm.
At church, we have been going through Philippians. Both messages thus far, have been mostly about life and death. Now I know this could send the grieving in the congregation out of the room, but I was inclined to stay. I am one of those that makes myself look at the hard things and try not to let my emotions come over me, but its easier said than done when it comes to losing Andrew’s daily presence. The messages have been more about evaluating your life...what is your life going to say about you? Whether you live six years or 60 or 106, your life will say something...what is it you valued most? I can proudly say that Andrew’s had several loves in his life...Jesus, people (and he loved them all) and balls...and at his Freedom Fest (what we called his funeral), his love for those things was the mark of the festivities. The preacher also went on to say...that if we as Christians know this is not our home, then how should we live? Another teacher said this week, that we have it all backwards...as extreme as it sounds, we should grieve at birth and rejoice at death! Even though that sounds harsh, it just might be the truth!

Andrew went on hospice in February, just four months before he died. During this time a lady named Jane, who is a transition nurse on the Oncology floor of a local hospital, befriended me. We talked over the phone and exchange a lot of emails, in fact, we didn't’ meet in person until a couple weeks after Andrew found his freedom. I remember when Jane reminded me to look at this in the spiritual and boy did that make a radical change in my outlook. As Andrew’s caregivers, Fred and I HAD to be thinking of the physical changes in Andrew’s body 24 hours a day...not much else was as important, during that time in our lives.

“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven...meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. Therefore, we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. We would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. WE DO NOT LOSE HEART; though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.” All from 2nd Corinthians.

Those are the words are still hanging above my desk and are still hanging above the spot where Andrew’s hospital bed sat. I am sure it has disturbed some people. We have many wonderful friends who love Jesus that believe in divine, miraculous healing. I believe in this too...I have not only been the recipient of this but have laid hands on others and God has healed them as a result of that time in prayer. Our whole stance about healing when Andrew was sick was we knew God COULD heal him on this earth, but we didn’t know that he WOULD...we just had to say “we trust you God, no matter what!” We knew that regardless of the length of his life, that Andrew would fulfill his destiny on this earth! However, as long as he was sick, I HAD to be about the business of that day...just as I believe the Proverbs 31 woman would be...but if Andrew was healed that day, then the business of my day would change...and happily so!
We were often criticized for not having enough faith...for losing faith...or focusing too much on a bad report. You know what? I don't’ believe that...it takes more faith to live in the spiritual than it does in the physical and God told us: “when we are faithless, he remains faithful!” Implying that our faith was not strong enough to heal Andrew does two things...it puts us in control instead of God and it implies that a lack of faith caused Andrew’s death, pain and suffering. I KNOW we live in a fallen world where sin and sickness reside, and I’m not sure how that all plays out, but I do know this...God didn’t take Andrew, he received him! He welcomed him! He had a party! So if we really want the mind of God, we should be happy that Andrew got to go early...in fact, I am almost jealous at times!
Honestly, the doctors never knew how to give Andrew a prognosis, they could only look at the decline. When he was diagnosed right before his sixth birthday, one doctor told me he thought he would live to be twelve...so as I lit those birthday candles, I thought my child was middle aged , yet part of me wondered if I would get to light another candle. By the end of that year, God told me Andrew would die in 2003...I knew it and I was at peace...it was so hard to hear and I told the Lord that I didn’t like it, but I understood. I never told anyone this...not a soul, until after he died...the criticism would have been too much! I knew when hospice suggested planning Freedom Fest (as they do with all patients), that it was okay...God‘s peace was all over it! He gave us all the right ideas to epitomize the value of Andrew’s life at that celebration and I don't regret that at all.

This business of my day not only included the physical, but the spiritual, as it should for all believing moms. Andrew loved worship music and I remember him asking me what ‘spirit’ meant. Of course, trying to explain this to a six-year-old who had lost years of cognitive skills, was a challenge. But here’s the wonderful gift the Lord gave us...spiritually, Andrew’s ability to understand was beyond explanation. I told him that a spirit was the part of us that made us wonderful (because he never knew people could be anything else) and what made him Andrew and me mommy. Then God guided me and I said that our spirits would live together forever! Andrew then said this quite often, and generally just at the right time, but he added a little phrase...he would say, “our spirits will live together forever in our hearts.”

During those last two months, Andrew and I had many talks...always started by God I think. I recall one time I told Andrew that if Jesus called his name, I wanted him to run, run, run as fast and he could to Him! Of course I said it through tears and with an aching heart, but there is NO other place in this world I would rather my child be, if not with me! A few days later, Andrew came in my room early one morning and said he wasn’t going to run to Jesus...I got all ready to reteach him, when he said...no mom, I am going to skateboard! Andrew always wanted to skateboard and never could on this earth, but that is how his heart and mind grasped getting to Jesus the fastest! This was part of taking care of Andrew in the spiritual.

About ten days before Andrew got his freedom, he told us all goodbye...even the two visitors we had at the house. He was confident that he was going to see Jesus that night...he was very excited and we of course, watched him extra close through the night. The next morning he didn’t wake up quite as fast, so I rushed to check his breathing...still fine...I was so anxious during that extra thirty minutes of sleep he took. When he woke up, he was all disappointed and said ’Jesus didn’t call my name”. I quickly covered and said I thought Jesus was still working on his skateboard...he accepted that but ever happy to see Jesus and get a new body.

Andrew got his freedom on a Monday...on Memorial Day...being that he was born on the fourth of July, it was perfect timing. However, that Saturday he had a fairly normal...if not, good day. He went outside on the porch for a few minutes...he also ate his favorite thing...a hamburger! He did start complaining of pain that night, then again, he told us all goodbye. Actually, he wouldn’t let me leave the room that night until I gave him permission to miss me, even though I tried to talk him out of it.
The next day he was out of it but since he was on a lot of meds, we thought he was drugged. The weekend nurse didn’t know him well enough to realize these were his final hours with us on earth. Around nine that evening, even though he was pretty much in a coma, he started clapping wildly and speaking inaudibly...yes, he was cheering. We are quite certain this is the moment he saw his Jesus and skateboarded into heaven...the moment he was truly free and given the new body he so desired! Its amazing to think back on it and it brings me joy to know that Heaven is not a solemn place and my boy who thought any occasion with cake was a party, is enjoying himself now. He probably has the privilege of being one of the greeters, cheering as others enter Heaven, since he was always our family cheerleader.

Now while we know the clapping was a physical manifestation of what was going on in the spirit, his body, had not yet given up. When I went to bed that night, there was still no change and I really didn’t know what to expect. Fred was sleeping on a small bed in Andrews’s room and woke up in the wee hours to discover that Andrew’s body was, in fact, in the process of dying. We called the hospice team and they told us based on what we saw in the physical, that it would be over very soon.

For the next two and half hours, what we saw his body go through, was frankly, gruesome. No one prepared me for that...the human body doesn’t want to die and the struggle to stay alive is quite amazing. However, in those moments, when I was able to get beyond what my eyes were seeing, there was a real beauty there. Its much like being a labor coach...you maintain the focus so the other one can let the body do what it needs to do. I felt like I was urging...ushering...the last bit of his life into what was going to be the most amazing part of his life, it was his true spiritual birth. There was a quietness...a perfect holiness about it that doesn’t bring me to tears because of what I lost in that moment, but brings me to tears because of what I gained. The healing had come...my job of preparing Andrew for the next part of his life, was done...he was away from his body, but with the LORD. So I choose to fix my eyes on what is unseen...because that is what is eternal!

deb wells
May not be reprinted without permission from the author 01.21.04
in memory of Andrew Pierce Wells 07.04.96-05.26.03