The window of heaven...

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 
                           
                                                      ~Reinhold Niebuhr


When one spends a great deal of time in hospitals, including pediatric and adult cancer wards too, one sees a lot.  

My first experience witnessing death was when I was nineteen during my first spine surgery, and learning to walk again.  For several days the hospital became so busy, cancer patients had to be admitted to beds on the Neurosurgery Wing.

A lady named Mrs. Shields was in the room across the hall from me after Mr. Rothschild, who had the knee surgery I wrote about earlier.  Mrs. Shields was not very old, but bless her heart, had been so terribly ravaged by cancer, she appeared ancient.  And she was not expected to live much longer.

She was terrified, and apparently whatever she was given for pain her last day, was not enough.  For hours she screamed and cried, thrashing in bed.  Her family was distraught, as would be expected.

All of this I couldn't help but hear and witness too that whole day, as her door kept being left opened.  And mine.

Sometimes these days I have what I call my "ten second moments," when I get afraid of my own impending death, because I already live with horrendous pain and sickness...like "how much worse can it get if it is this bad now" kind of fear.  Yet only for a "ten second moment" though, because I quickly jerk myself out of such fear.  I also focus on the two other, far different passings in the pediatric oncology ward which happened several years later when I was there.

The first was Josh who was fourteen years old who had been fighting a rare form of cancer for much of his young life.  Finally, nothing more could be done.  With his parents and a minister at his beside, Josh was no longer conscious.  All at once Josh awoke, exclaiming, "Mom!  Dad!  Look at the angels!"  And he slipped away.  His parents and the minister felt they had been given a tremendous gift, the what that had become known on the ward, as the Heaven Window. 

Marcy was six and dying after a long leukemia battle.  She had been unconscious for hours with her parents by her side.  Suddenly, she sat up, telling her parents that Grandpa Hogan was there to take her to Heaven...then she slumped over, and was gone.

Grandpa Hogan, Marcy's Great Grandfather, had died years before Marcy was born.  She never even knew him other than seeing him in a few old photographs.  Her parents were both grieving and happy at the same time, realizing what an amazing gift they had been given...the Heaven Window.

So whenever I have one of my "ten second moments," I grab my faith, and the image I have in my mind of the Heaven Window opened for Josh, and Marcy.

It will all be okay.