Waiting In the Other Room

    (This story was written in 2005)

     It seems I write about death, as much as any other subject. But then death is just a continuation. It is an opportunity to move through one familiar room into another not so unfamiliar room; one that we have never seen with mortal eyes, but for which our eternal spirits strain.

     It’s happening all over again. My mother-in-law died just ten months ago. Ruby and Dock were married for over seventy years! Though Dock was “pushing thirty,” and had several children, he enlisted in the navy near the end of World War II. Ruby did her best to raise the children in his absence. I’ve been told that their first house had a dirt floor.

     But now it’s happening all over again.
 

     Dock had a massive stroke last week. Though he was sent to the rehabilitation floor, he seems to be deteriorating. His pulse is erratic, and he is totally non-communicative. His face is molted with a red tinge, and his breathing is labored. From time to time his eyes focus on one, or the other of his family, and for a few seconds he seems to know who they are, and where he is.
 

     We were called to the hospital this morning. There’s a possibility that Dock won’t make it through the day. And I found myself singing to my father-in-law, as I also sang to my mother-in-law, prior to her death. I knew I had to do it. That old awareness came over me, and today, (as before) I sang a few hymns and choruses to the old man.

     Amazing Grace, In The Garden, I’d Rather Have Jesus, and several others. My wife, and in-laws sang with me. And Dock’s eyes filled with tears, and we knew he comprehended what we were doing there.

 

    God's Word tells us that "it is appointed unto man once to die." (Hebrews 9:27). We cannot escape it. I think sometimes we try to make an exception of ourselves. Living just gets familiar. All too familiar.

     I see death in the eyes of an old man. It’s coming on hard now. But there’s a not so unfamiliar room beyond this one; beyond this little room we’ve grown to know, but have not always loved.

    And the One we have known, and loved from a distance

 

    … is waiting there for us.

 

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "Musings"