Smile, it's painless!

On May 15, 1999 my father died of complications following a quintuple heart bypass. He also had colon cancer, but the bypass had to be done before the cancer surgery. It was a race against time that we lost. Dad was 78 years old. When he died his second wife, all five of his children and 3 of his 4 step children were with him.

My Dad was a simple guy who loved working with his hands. He could take a scrap of wood and turn it into something usefull. In fact, he scoured lumber yards for cast off wood that no one else wanted. He made all sorts of things using simple tools. Tables, chairs, lawn ornaments, picnic tables, whatever he felt someone might need. He also restored antiques until emphazema put a stop to that. His home was filled with them.

When the time came to pick out his coffin we really liked the look of the cherry wood, but it was too expensive. Then Adam, my nephew, saw one in the corner, it was a beautiful blend of different hues of cherry. When we asked about it the man said, “Oh, you don’t want that one. It’s made out of all the scraps left over from making the good ones.” It was perfect and that’s the one we chose. Dad would have loved it! My nephew, Adam, told his mom that he liked it so much he wanted to be buried in one just like it. We all laughed at him, “They won’t be making them any more when you die, Adam!” We burried dad in a spot at the edge of the woods on top of a hill. A place he also would have liked, because he, in death could look down on the people who had looked down on him in life. He’d have called it justice!

I was glad to finally get home and put the past 5 months behind me. It’d been a real trial with several trips to Michigan. I think I’d spent more time there than I had in my own home in Florida. Life got back to normal and, gradually, the pain of loss began to ease. Then, on May 30th, when I was in the checkout at the grocery store, my cell phone rang. It was my step sister. Could I call her as soon as I got home? On the drive home, all I could think about was Adam. I was sure something was wrong with him. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew.

When I called Faith back, she didn’t waste time. Adam had been killed in a car accident early that morning. As you can imagine, I didn’t take it well. I called Gene and as soon as he got the message he came home. I already had my flight arranged and he drove me to the airport later that night. He couldn’t come with me so I had a lot of time to think on that flight. My in-laws picked me up at the airport and I stayed with them as I had on all my other trips to MI that year.
I learned the details from Adam’s mom, my sister Debbie. Adam liked to drive fast, too fast. He always laughed when his mom worried, saying he could control any car. Well, he lost control on a curve and couldn’t correct fast enough and the car flipped over. Adam was 20 years old and we buried him in a coffin just like his Grandpa’s.

Two deaths, two funerals, two coffins. One man old, the second man young. One death we had time to prepare for, if you can ever prepare for death. The other was totally unexpected. Yet, through our saddness at each loss we could still rejoice, because we knew that each one was now with God in heaven. Each man, my Dad and Adam, had accepted Christ as their Savior. Dad, quietly after much contemplation, in church. Adam, after a church service in jail where he was serving time for breaking & entering. Both were changed by that experience and they served God in different ways. Dad in his church and Adam in jail telling other inmates about Christ, even after he was released.

Now they’re together in heaven and Dad, I’m sure, is trying to remodel the place, telling God that this wall needs to come down or a new path would go great right here. And Adam is standing there holding the tools my Dad might need and shaking his head saying, “Oh, Grandpa, leave it alone, it’s fine just the way it is!” Yep, Dad’s remodeling heaven and Adam’s handing him his tools, just like it was when they were here.