Stepping into the Light

Five years ago this morning, I hurried to the master bedroom of my first floor unit at Starlight Apartments in Nashville, Tennessee. One last teardrop rolled down my husband’s cheek. Did it mean a release of pain or an intake of joy over a glorious destination seen at the moment of death? I heard a final discharge of the breath of life.

"You’re perfect now, baby. You’re perfect now." Those were my parting words.

"Of course, I love you, baby. You know I love you." Those had been his last words to me two nights earlier, before he lost either the ability or the will to speak. I never heard another word from him except when he exclaimed "Hey, what are you doing," when our dear friend Sandra and her daughter yanked a sheet out from under him during a cleanup maneuver the day before he passed.

Sandra, who had spoken to Jae almost daily over the last year as she went through her own cancer and chemotherapy drama, was with me the morning my husband let go of the fight against cancer, pain, disorientation, nausea, and the twenty-four hour a day diarrhea that had wracked his emaciated and tired body for the last week of his life. Five days earlier I’d brought him home from the hospital with a load of powerful purging and pain relieving medications and little hope except in our two hearts. I was going to try to nurse him alone, with just a weekly or bi-weekly one or two hour visit from a visiting hospice nurse. Even after losing nearly half his body weight over the past year or so, my husband was still heavier than I and seven inches taller. He was too weak to walk back to bed after his first trip to the bathroom Friday night, and it was all I could do to help. At one point we were on the floor beside our bed and I started to pray. He said to me, "No shouting, okay? No shouting." All I could do then was laugh. I had recently alarmed everyone at the nearby nurses station and probably a few other patients in the hospital when I started screaming "thank you Jesus," at the top of my lungs during a prayer session with a roomful of visitors, and I guess my husband didn’t want neighbors banging on the door or calling the police. By Monday, I had called several fellow ministers from our church, including Sandra, and begged for help. They volunteered to be with my husband nine hours a day indefinitely so that I could get some relief and go back to work. All of our savings had been used up during the seven months it took for Social Security disability checks to start coming after my husband had to quit his job because of the illness, so we needed volunteers if we were to get help.

Behind the closed door of our hall bathroom the night before Jae died, I begged God to "either raise him up now, or take him now." It had been a relatively good day. I’d been able to work while Sandra as well as another couple of friends stayed with Jae all day. He’d been fed a few drops of something and our ministering angels had cleaned him up just before I arrived at home. I’d been able to eat while he rested and then I’d had to clean him up again but I was relaxed enough from my hours of rest to tenderly apply moisturizer all over his skin and to powder his back and thighs where bedsores had begun to fester with alarming speed. He’d rested calmly while I’d read aloud a few chapters of "The Purpose Driven Life" from where we’d left off recently. We were close to the end of the book. That night I’d also recited an article called "I Am" that someone had passed on to us, which listed many scriptures describing who we are in God’s eyes. After each item, I’d say, "that’s you, baby." After the reading I kissed Jae’s mouth and forehead and went to the living room sofa to sleep. A short time later the agony of diarrhea began again. I couldn’t bear to see him suffer any longer. "Lord, either raise him up now or take him now."

Wednesday morning I was supposed to work again and Sandra came with a young helper from church to relieve me. Somehow, I couldn’t make myself go. An hour after they arrived I was still there, talking about Jae, who was a gifted songwriter. I played one after another of Jae’s songs on our tape player. The ladies kept saying, "we’re here, Diane, you can go."

The Saturday before Jae’s death, his son Shane had visited and spent the night. Shane’s mom drove him from North Carolina because Shane was too upset to make the trip alone and they both got to indirectly say goodbye.

At Jae’s homegoing service on Saturday, October 4, 2003, joy filled the atmosphere. It wasn’t a big crowd; all the teenagers from our church, who loved Jae so, stayed away because they’d decided they didn’t want to see him in the casket. But everyone else closest to my husband attended. Shane flew back to Nashville. Jae’s great friend Steve came from Austin, Texas and brought photocopies of a 1979 or 1980 portrait of Jae and me and handed one to every attendee after service. All the ministers at Claiborne Street Missionary Baptist Church that day spoke, and Pastor Finney gave the eulogy for his close friend. Friend after friend got up to speak. Jae’s beautiful and dynamic sister Kim, who had battled breast cancer while Jae underwent colon cancer treatment, convinced my mom to sing "The Tennessee Waltz." Mom thought the song inappropriate for a funeral, but relented, knowing how Jae had often requested her to sing it for him.

Kim and Shane convinced me to get up and speak, though I didn’t know if I could. "For twenty-five years I’ve been loved better than anyone has a right to expect or to ask," I began.

The night after Jae’s passing I’d written the homegoing program. Searching for a favorite scripture of Jae’s to include, I picked up his personal Bible. I choose Philippians 2:11 from among the highlighted verses.

Handwritten inside the cover of Jae’s Bible, I found note which I shared with the listeners as I spoke at his service. Jae had written, "I never wanted to leave you, I just wanted to be with my Jesus more. I love you and I’ll be waiting for you." I believe that was not only for me, but for everyone he cared for, and I said so.