The Last Goodbye
The hospice team visited on the morning of January 7, and they were the most somber that I could recall. We had gotten his temperature regulation issues under control, but his breathing pattern had distinctly changed for the worse. His body was wearing out from the struggle to keep his oxygen levels up. He would take several heavy breaths, and then stop breathing for a few seconds. We didn’t knew he didn’t have long. I had arranged to pre-record a video of Asher’s eulogy as one of my attempts to make things easier on us in the event of his passing, as it would be one less thing to worry about. I had scheduled to meet someone at our church at 1:00 PM. One of our pastors who had been walking with us since the first day, had come by to visit Asher. I cleaned myself up, put on a nice shirt, and while I was getting dressed, I could hear Asher having a coughing fit, and my wife using the suction machine to clear out his airway as best she could. I finished preparing, and came to say goodbye to Asher before I walked out the door. I had explained to him earlier that I was going to record a video about him and his journey.
As I knelt beside the bed, I spoke to him, and he gave another deep, rough cough. And he stopped breathing again, but this time it was for much longer. As looked at him with a furrowed brow, and his next breath was a big gasp, and then he stopped again. “Buddy?” I said. “Are you okay?” Another few seconds and another gasp followed by a long pause. I became alarmed because I knew what was happening. I looked at Leah standing on the other side of the room, and said, “We need to call the nurses, and call the family. I think he is leaving.” She was shocked, but she didn’t question it. We had no idea what to expect from this moment on. We just gathered around him, and poured out our hearts to him once again with a resolve to see him off to his home with all of the love that we could muster.
Though I was starting to falling apart inside, I managed to get my phone and call the hospice line, and a couple of family members. Local family was told to get to our house as soon as possible. As they would arrive, I ushered them in quickly to see and speak to him one last time. Over the course of the next hour and a half, everyone we expected to be there had filed in, and spoken to Asher. Each family member who came in would come close to him and pour out the love in their hearts to him. Leah laid down beside him and held him the entire time. When our daughter arrived, I held her as I continued to sit on the side of his bed. She wept as loudly as she could. Like us, she knew this day was coming, but it was so difficult to endure, and impossible to imagine our home, our family without him. He continued to fight for every breath, refusing to sleep one last time. As the space between his breaths grew, I looked at one of the nurses who was timing his breaths, and she said, about 15 seconds apart, and as soon as the words left her mouth, Asher gasped again. And I grinned and said “Except for that one?” She smiled, and Asher gasped again. He was at death’s door, but turning around making us laugh one last time. He was not going to go quietly into that good night.
A few minutes later he coughed again, and the nurse suctioned him in another attempt to make it easier to breath. He struggled for a couple of breaths, and suddenly his right arm raised high, he coughed again, and his arm came down. A long silence, followed by one more breath, and his body relaxed. The nurse checked him again. We waited. The nurse shook her head. Asher was gone.
The room erupted in mourning. We sang some songs, and comforted one another as my wife held the lifeless body of her firstborn. Her arms were like the bookends of his life, as she was the first and last to hold him in this world.
Over the next ten minutes most of the family filed out. But Leah was still there, holding his body. She asked for a few more minutes. No one was ready for him to be gone, especially her.
When Leah left her post holding her son’s body, I asked the nurses what was next. They explained to me that they typically cleaned the body prior to the arrival of the funeral directors who would come and take the body away. I asked if I could participate, and of course they said yes. I cannot express in words how meaningful these next steps were to me. I picked up my son’s body, and took it to the bath where I had carried him so many times in his sickness, and I washed it. I felt a connection with humanity, with the countless men and women over millenia that had done this very thing. It such an unexpectedly great honor that, after all we had been through, and as backwards and broken a thing it is to for a parent to bury a child, to be the first to prepare Asher’s body for burial; to prepare the body of the most courageous boy I knew, my own son. An honor. Yes, that’s exactly what it was.
I also felt something else. For the first time in hours, I had some self-awareness about what I was experiencing physically. As I was on my knees, bathing my son’s body while next to one of the nurses, I looked at her and asked, “I feel like I’m running on pure adrenaline right now. Should I expect a crash at some point?” She looked at me, and nodded a confident, “Yes.” Little did I know that “crash,” a coming down from the adrenaline and all of the stress of the aftermath, wouldn’t happen for days.
After we cleaned his body, I carried it back to his bed. We found some clothes to put on him, and we selected a camouflage uniform he had received from some of our Navy vet friends as the clothes our little soldier would be buried in. The funeral home had been notified, and now we were just waiting. I sat by his body on the bed, occasionally running my fingers through his hair, still in shock at what all had just happened. Annelise seemed to be the only other family member who was comfortable being in there as well.
Our two nurses and social worker were hard at work documenting and disposing of medication. They were superheroes in my eyes. I relayed my admiration and awe to them that anyone would be capable of doing this for a career. The youngest of the three, who had been silently crying as Asher passed, responded, “You could probably tell, but this was my first.” I tried my best to reassure her that she did great, because she had. The mixture of emotions I felt for her in that moment was significant. Most people don’t witness a child dying, period. This young lady had chosen this role, which carries a known level of devastation with it, and yet I was honored that she was with us. I was thankful all of us, including Asher, who was a gem of a patient, had set a precedent for her. I hope the bar we set in our conduct and outlook remains high, and I pray that other families meet and exceed it.
Somewhere between two and three hours after I began to rally everyone due to Asher’s imminent passing, the hearse arrived. And for the last time, I carried my son’s body through his favorite room in the house, where he spent most of his waking life the last few months he was here, down the stairs, through the garage, to a gurney where I laid his body, and they covered it with a sheet. Through the deep sadness of the moment, there was a flicker of gratitude: We hadn’t left anything unsaid. My son left this world knowing he is loved deeply.
January 7 Update:
Asher left for a better country this afternoon around 2:30 PM surrounded by family. There he has found healing, and rest in the presence of his King. Your prayers for his healing have been answered in full.
Information regarding his final arrangements will be posted soon.
Our family would like to extend a final thanks to you, the amazing community who has surrounded us, cared for us, wept with us, and prayed for us during this most difficult journey. Your compassion will long be remembered.
As always, I will end with ways you can pray for us as you think about us over the next few days, weeks, and even years.
First, pray for God’s glory to be displayed through the gospel. There are coming opportunities for others to not only hear, but see people living with the hope that we and others in our family of faith have. Pray especially for the children near to our family, cousins, classmates, friends, who need extra love and care. Pray they have space to grieve in meaningful ways.
Ways to pray for Annelise: Pray for her broken heart. She’s a tender-hearted girl who loves her brother, and though she knew to expect this, she is still devastated like the rest of us. Pray that she can have space to grieve, but also have space to play, and continue to be herself. Thank God for the support system she already has in place at home, school, and church. Pray that time would dim the dark days, and that the good times would shine brighter. Pray that her faith would not be extinguished. Pray that she would flourish.
Ways to pray for me and Leah: While Asher’s journey is over, we’ve got a difficult road in front of us. Our hearts are already broken. We still have a few plunges into the icy depths of grief ahead of us, before we can really begin to the process of mending wounds that will never fully heal in this life. Pray that we are able to sort through seemingly opposing emotions. We are filled with joy and relief that our son is no longer suffering and is rejoicing in the presence of his Maker. We are hopeful that our family will be restored in the future. And yet we grieve, and are filled with sadness that seems to have no end, because there is an empty seat at our table. The world feels turned upside down, because parents shouldn’t have to bury their children. We’ll have to manage wave after wave of these emotions in the midst of our day-to-day for a long time to come. Special days on the calendar are now tainted.
I can’t stress enough that praying is the most practical thing you can do for us and for yourself. Your prayers are not in vain. God has used it to sustain us for the last year. God will use it to sustain and change you.
Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.