Are you getting it?
I witnessed my grandpa die last month. I was blessed to be there the moment he drew his last breath and watched his pulse fade from the hospital room. As its now been over a month, I can already begin to feel the memories rearranging themself in my head with a more mundane order that I want to fight against. My expired professional life refined my aptitude to remember inconsequential facts and systems, but forgets feelings and spiritual impressions and I don't think thats good. I feel now I must write to force myself to recall the full spiritual essence of the experience. I am conflicted with the self-awareness of receiving the Lord's blessing of comfort promised to those who mourn with Jesus (Matthew 5:4) since I don't feel I deserve it.
In a weird way I get jealous of the non-believers who have no choice but to process other's deaths in the much more tragic, final way. Its like I have accidentally been given the cheat-code for not experiencing the full depth of the terrifying, but beautiful human emotion of grief. I feel I'm unworthy of comfort– my faith is too new– Grandpa deserves more tears. I ask myself am I really that certain I fully believe what it is that now mysteriously comforts me or am I just an unfeeling robot with a morbid curiosity of mortality and perverse enough to use my dying Grandpa to provoke my own tears to selfishly seek further assistance in the spiritual process of waking up? A wise man I heard recently advised to not consider too deeply these things as you will either end up self-righteous or descend into despair so instead we should just live in the present, surrender your will, and trust in God's path. I intend to listen to that advice.
Regardless of these, special things did happen in the days around Grandpa's death in the hospital room to which I now want to forever commit to memory and bear witness to.
I had the privilege of arriving in Iowa Falls almost a week before he passed and had zero distractions, scheduled events, or other worldly obligations to balance against spending time in that hospital room. So I decided it was obviously God's plan that I was meant to maximize time to give maximum opportunity for serendipity, meaning, or for the Lord to use me to assist in his mission of mercy for the souls present. Grandpa wasn't able to have much conversation due to his failing voice, but he was 100% present and of sound mind when I first saw him in the hospital room and gave me the first of many, surprisingly strong, bear hugs over the next week as he slipped away.
I arrived by gifting his hospital room a little mini crucifix I bought from St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City while I was in Rome over 2 years ago. This crucifix was very special to me as it marked the first time in my entire life I bought an actual religious piece with full understanding of what it meant. In hindsight, I came to recognize that this was a pivotal moment where I noticed the reality that a real Christian faith was beginning to materialize in my thinking seemingly out of nowhere. I attached the crucifix to my bicycle as I rode all over Europe for two years and as such served as my first public and unashamed profession of faith. Many interesting conversations were started from strangers noticing it on my travels. I brought it with me on the flight from Portugal to Iowa out of a habit of bringing it on big trips-- I figured I'd be needing it for myself considering why I was going.
I don't know why I left it with Grandpa in the hospital. Maybe I wanted to make sure my public proclamation of faith presented to the roads of Europe made it to his ears too and that he might rejoice in the knowing. I don't know if he knew about the change happening in me or if he even noticed I didn't have any real faith when growing up in Iowa Falls. He probably did, which may have been why we never conversed about it. It's so easy to avoid those kinds of deep spiritual conversations growing up to keep everybody in the room comfortable. Believers preferring ignorance over knowing for sure whether the people they love have faith and unbelievers feeling awkward or judged in having to perform their deception again and again to avoid breaking the hearts of the faithful for what they think is a silly reason they begrudgingly have to "tip toe" around.
Its not a silly reason.
I think we all find out about this very clearly at end of life. Grandpa would zone out of conversations in the hospital room about worldly concerns like sports conquests of the great-grandchildren, beautiful things I've seen when travelling, details concerning his hospital care or really any of the conversations even if they were about him amongst room visitors. If someone informed him that they had successfully mowed their lawn, the spiritual essence of its doing was the only that mattered. He would respond: "Were you proud?"
What lit him up in the final days was when the hospital chaplain came to talk and pray over him. For that, he paid attention, and even expressed happily about "we could talk for hours" about things spiritual. Grandpa, I wish we could have! But I woke up so late in life, my faith is still so new and I don't always enjoy making people awkward around me. The appropriate verse proclaiming this truth to me came from 1 John 2:15:
"Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever"
One of the mornings I found grandpa holding on to that crucifix as he slept. I realized then this crucifix wasn't mine anymore. It was his and was his all along. I am convinced now the strange set of coincidences that encouraged me to spontaneously buy that crucifix at the most holy Christian place on Earth over 2 years ago was earmarked for Grandpa all this time and had nothing to do with me. I was just the lowly delivery boy that paraded it for a time on bicycle tours to gave it a faith conversation starter story. If it brought even 2 seconds of actual peace to Grandpa in his deathbed, that trumps all my sentimentality in having carried it so far.
In the days that followed, grandpa increasingly lost interest in about everything else worldly, including the shame of being naked as he kept wanting to pull off his clothes. I felt I understood though, as whats the use in caring anymore about the social customs of the world you're leaving behind shortly. I'm most comfortable naked too. Although secular medicine had an explanation for this supposedly common phenomenon that uses wording like "metabolite buildup in the brain creating intense sensitivity to touch", its not an explanation that anybody in a hospital room needs to pretend interest about– there is nobody from the technology priesthood in earshot that needs impressing. Spiritual contemplation about it is much more fruitful to those of us no longer the target demographic for science and medicine major recruitment. I'm planning on getting naked now on my deathbed too so that I cause anybody witnessing me to give me the benefit of the doubt for a few more hours or days that this crazy getting naked thing might still be Jesse doing what he said he would do and not just a dying human brain's chemical reaction that should be suppressed so as to not make the healthy people in the room embarrassed. Thanks Grandpa for the tip on clearing the room of anybody who falsely presumes I would ever remotely care about my human dignity on my deathbed. For everybody else, come visit me on my deathbed in anticipation of the strip show– I won't care! I've no use for dignity where I'm going. Giving birth I would imagine is also a rather undignified state for both mother and child, but neither pretends to care. There is no birth with dignity so there is no death with dignity. (Which curiously, is the propaganda slogan liberals have to advocate for the legalization of human euthanasia)
The other thing Grandpa did a lot in those last days was look around the room as if tracking something we couldn't see. He did manage to tell us once what he was seeing in the room. He said it was "light", which was like a mic-drop moment for me as everybody in the room understood the significance without commenting. I wish I would have had more courage and wit to know how to respond, but I think I was as dumbstruck as everyone else at that moment. I kind of wish an unbeliever would have been present to witness and process that, but I don't think any were. This was Iowa Falls Iowa, not Portland Oregon. Atheists and agnostics are still pretty rare there.
The last few days Grandpa didn't have much more to do with his crucifix, though it was always on the bed's tray table. I started playing a game to break up passing time where I would stand it up whenever I noticed it had fallen over. It would always fall over easily at the slightest movement. I'd stand it up when leaving the hospital room for the night and it would always be fallen over in the morning. It was a reassuring indicator that the nurses had done some tending during the night on his bedside while we slept, but I always secretly hoped I'd see it still standing when I arrived. It would also fall randomly during the day, and in the spiritually mystic state I allowed myself to reside in while there, I'd try to see if I could read it for a sign of Jesus' disapproval for a thought I was having or about to have the moment it fell over. I feel this was a healthy spiritual game and humility exercise, as there is always some way to imagine a way our perfect Lord may have disagreed with any random thought of us lowly sinners. Sometimes I'd even half anticipate it falling down as I'd catch myself thinking an easily criticizable thought and it wouldn't fall over. Then I'd change my thinking into acknowledging His great mercy and ponder about the nature of grace. We all started participating in the game of putting Jesus on his crucifix back up on the table, but I didn't ever explain how I was interpreting it for myself to others until just now here. I was deriving spiritual significance out of the mundane to keep Him close in mind in case He needed to lead my thoughts somewhere or His will need doing.
I don't want to forget any of these moments. I realized part of the plan God had for Grandpa's life was playing out in the conversations, silences, and spiritual rumination's the people around his deathbed were having and that was no small thing. If, on my deathbed, something my dying brain does randomly moves even one person in the room an inch closer to accepting Jesus, my soul would rejoice and Jesus and I would give each other a high five. Most anything else done worldly only lasts as long as people live and remember, which is not infinite and likely for most of us, only going to be at most a few generations to the last moment in time our name is spoken aloud.
The last days were rough though. Grandpa starting calling for help constantly. He had no energy, it was obvious, but he'd muster up with all his feeble strength these exasperated pleas for help. To say this was difficult to hear is an understatement. This is a part of his story however I find myself most in danger of forgetting and I curse myself for being tempted to. Death is the real deal and must not be sugar coated so I resolve to commit these days to memory most as I find most spiritual fruit in the uncomfortable.
We all tried in our own ways to make his calls for help to stop. More morphine and vallium is what the secular hospital and hospice suggested. The nurse would come in and as gently as she knew how would explain to Grandpa that he wasn't going to get better and that he probably was going to die here. This conversation would repeat, each time starting with Grandpa getting the nurse's attention, the nurse asking if he was hungry or thirsty (to which he usually said no), him wanting to go home and then her reexplaining that he wasn't likely going home and each time we'd see his spirits collapse upon hearing that news, the same way, over and over. He had a hard time expressing much vocally with his weak voice, but the way he flopped his arms and face told the whole story and it was impossible for me to comprehend how that might feel if it were me.
I, only once, worked up the courage for a try and held his hand explaining that modern medicine has failed him and it had run out of ways to fix your health. He was often very convinced that the nurses were conspiring against him, which must have been difficult for the nurses to hear. In so many words, I encouraged him to understand that there was nobody on Earth left to help him but there was hope still in the other kingdom. I don't know why it felt awkward saying this kind of stuff aloud to Grandpa on his deathbed– I don't feel like I had any authority to speak like that, so in regret for having spoken went back to another chair in the room and in my confusion, accidentally left my heart to harden against hearing those cries for help. I still haven't fully accepted the shame of letting them blend into the background for hours. I think this marked the beginning of the real end for him as there was never anything reassuring or hopeful that followed.
He sometimes added "Mom" to his calls for help. I didn't know if this was calling out for Grandma or his own Mom, whom I obviously never met. Again, I want to write on the full weight of the moment. Considering a 92 year old man calling out for his mother on his deathbed is heart wrenching to consider, but I have no doubt there are depths of despair we reach near death that seem unimaginable to us who are still healthy. My (temporarily) hardened heart did not even allow this to register at the time. Secular medicine, of course, would have a clinical answer to this as a "normal phase in the process of death" that I have absolutely no interest in and would probably roll my eyes in the hearing of. A clinical take offered on whats happening to Grandpa in that moment would be received in my ears about the same way as devout atheists would of a Catholic priest's take on what might be going on spiritually. For the left behind on earth, neither one can solve death to the satisfaction of family, but the priests can get a heck of a lot closer in my book (if the family has faith).
An interesting moment occurred as I noticed Grandpa touching his nose a lot. Nurses said this was him beginning "to notice the changes" preceding imminent death. I, however, recognized it as exactly the same thing I do if I drink too much wine. My wife often times uses it as her indicator that I'm starting to get a little tipsy. I hardly ever notice myself doing it. I realized again Grandpa and I share a lot of the same DNA, and my heart nudged a smidge closer to him.
See, I can internally reject certain clinical explanations in the moment with no consequence that erodes my facilities of reason to the danger of my mind and society at large. Oh, the heresy I dare commit to the religion of science! Quick! Censor the blasphemy before I share the thought and it spreads! This boy's pointless and dangerous desire to stay connected to his dying grandpa may end up disrupting science worship since its as it says in the scientist "bro-code": all facts must be exalted immediately upon discovery and the ignorant must be proselytized even on deathbeds! Of course I exaggerate here. A little.
The last 2 days Grandpa didn't really speak or interact. We, in the room, mostly sat in silence too as idle conversation also lost attraction. We'd count the seconds between breaths. I found a spot to fixate attention on his jugular to monitor his pulse. While others in the room had their anxiety peak in the long pauses in-between breaths, I remained steadfast and had an easier time of it since I had a better view and could always still see his heart beating in his neck from my chair. The nurse called this phase "guppy breathing", and the way his head, mouth, and brow was furrowed would have been traumatic for anybody other than loved ones and nurses to witness and not leave the room terrified. I personally remember walking the hallways of a hospital years ago and accidentally seeing an old dying stranger the exact same way, remembering the horror, and now having the unfortunate recognition of the same scene but now with my own Grandpa.
There were several different hospice nurses who visited Grandpa and the room during the times of my visits. I and others struggled with the ethics of giving Grandpa morphine and vallium when he presented and reported 0's on the 0-10 pain scale he'd be asked. When he took vallium, it was basically the sign that the conversations are now over, as he'd get very sleepy and disinterested. I worried if God's plan for Grandpa's death included some very important conversations and experiences that needed to happen for both souls sakes that excess Vallium might undermine or prevent them altogether. I hope everybody got the experience they and Grandpa needed in those last days, because I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little concerned some people (or Grandpa) had more that needed said but the vallium or morphine robbed someone the opportunity. I'm similarly worried about my persistant presence too that last week– it comes to me just now that maybe I should have given more opportunity for my own Dad to be in the room alone with Grandpa. I may have been too desperate and selfish to have discerned the proper timing of when I needed to step out.
The day it finally happened there was a miracle that generated in me the entire impetus to write this. This I have no danger of forgetting but I cherish opportunities to tell the story thinking it may help to inspire someone's faith now or plant a seed of it to sprout in their future. The morning of the day of his death, the hospice nurse was asked by my dad if it would have been possible for the chaplain to come since that was something that always lifted Grandpa's spirits. Nobody knew how close Grandpa was to death as we'd been told it could have been any hour for almost 4 days now. By the time the chaplain came in the afternoon of May 27th, 2026, we were well in the 2nd day of counting seconds between breaths in silence while Grandpa had been entirely unresponsive. Nobody was asking for the medical opinion of whether he was actually still "there" in the head or just unconscious as, frankly, the worldly physics of whats happening in the brain is irrelevant at this point. I can say that although his eyes were open, he was not blinking or looking around anymore and was not moving but still breathing strongly, but with pauses. Even his urge to get naked had passed.
When the chaplain came, we all kind of knew he was too late for his prayers to be of much interest anymore to Grandpa. Even still, he sat with us in silence for what seemed like hours. To me, this was such a refreshing distinction from the secular medicine and hospice nurses that were always on the go. He arrived not with an agenda and he did not exude the busybody aura I anticipate from nursing staff. He just patiently sat with us, taking everything in and it was perfect and refreshingly; not awkward. I think he was also reading the room in the unique way the best and most gentle Christian evangelists can do to sense if there are unbelievers present subconsciously broadcasting their disagreement or unbelief of God's power. Luckily, none of us exuded that that day, so things evolved exactly in the room as God intended with no demonic interference.
After what seemed like forever in silence, my Dad asked for the chaplain to lead a prayer and we all held hands with Grandpa. He started with "Lord..." and paused. It was quite a long pause, but I recognized what he was doing from a Bible verse I had recently read. "The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them". Luke 12:12. I wish I remembered more specifically what he said, but it was basically an improvised submissive plea for Jesus to enter the room. And that He did. Almost immediately Grandpa's breathing got noticeably calmer. We commented on that and felt reassured. I noticed something strange though and it looked like coinciding with the moment of the calmer breathing his pulse switched from one side of his neck to the other. Over the next minutes though, I noticed something wrong– the pulse over on that side was noticeably fading. And he died not more than 5 minutes after that prayer.
I've come to research that this is actually a very common result in the 2000 year old Catholic "Extreme Unction" sacrament that was removed by Martin Luther from the modern American protestant faiths some 400 years ago, but I think this chaplain replicated its ancient effect nonetheless. I'm skeptical Grandpa was conscious enough for it to have been explainable as calming words he heard through his mortal ears and a fully aware mind. Even if you choose to believe he could hear them and be calmed to the point of final release, what other words might one imagine being capable of commanding a dying man's body to die? I would imagine even the most exalted secular psychologists are powerless in such a hospital room. The church has been applying maximum possible kindness to these moments for longer than universities and hospitals even existed (since it was the Catholic church that even invented both of those)
The next hour after he died at the hospital is still a blur, but one thing I remember feeling strangely inspired to do was open the blinds to let the sun back into the room. In the previous Googling I had done in an effort to understand Grandpa's desire to take off his clothes had also suggested making the room darker which we almost immediately did. When advice comes to us under the auspices of smart men of science (which thanks to the internet now can be anyone with a laptop), we instinctively obey-- even luddites like me who've become increasingly skeptical of science having all the answers to all the questions worth asking. As I thought about it though, and knowing how quickly uninspired those "smart men of science" become in the case of lost causes where death is inevitable and their lack of power over it becomes embarrasing, I started to have doubts about the internet's advice here. I don't know about others, but I feel God's presence more in the sun than in the dark and I would probably prefer myself to die in the light than the dark, even if its the light of God thats provoking me to get naked, squirm, and make everybody else in the room feel awkward and worried I'll accidentally injure my already dying body more so.
I don't feel justified to encourage anyone's forgetting of even the most minor of the morbid details. The shock in the almost immediate change of skin color after the heart stops. The callousness of the finely tuned bureacratic machinery that goes into effect after death pronouncement. Noticing how quickly the body bag is prepared at the hospital room door even before anyone even leaves the hospital. All these things I have as scars but I am happy to now carry as memory. I know I am meant to feel all of this and use it to awaken my ego from the self delusion that mortality doesn't need contemplation. I believe that a death in the family is one of the most effective starting sparks of a path to true faith– something that doesn't just arm you with mortality "coping strategies", but something that leads to something much more consequential even while you still live.
"... we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." – Romans 5:3-5
After we left the hospital, in the spiritually delirious state I was in I found myself working overdrive noticing little things and miracles. I realize its a dangerous thing to resolve to try to notice coincidental seeming things in the world as non-coincidental, but truly I say, its such a more delightful discharge of idle creativity than the alternatives. The introspection can be sanctifying as long as you don't let yourself slide into the depravity of paganism, idol worship or intrigue of occult infected cultures and religions. Its easy to accidentally regress a burgeoning new and yet immature Christian faith in God backwards in sophistication 3000 years and rediscover another of the 1000 dead belief systems of pagan mysticism that history is littered with. Nevertheless, I remember pulling into my Dad's driveway on the way home from the hospital and commenting on the absurdly perfect timing of that last breath with the prayer in the hospital room. I mentioned something along the lines of that it must have been a demonstration God put on for one or all of us. That maybe someone needed reminding of God's power and He wanted to test us to see if we were paying close enough attention to the details to "get it" and notice Him.
My Dad had a radio playing in the background in his garage and as we were walking into the door from the hospital, the song playing was Def Leppard's 1987 rock song "Armageddon it" and the lyrics proclaimed at the exact moment, as if God's continuing the conversation we just had in the car:
"Are you getting it?"
"Really getting it?"
"Give me all of your loving, Give me all of your loving, for the best is yet to come"
That sounds like a divine response, request, and promise! That album its from also happens to be the first cassette tape I ever owned to as a kid. I was a big fan of Def Leppard. I like to think that wasn't a coincidence either. See! Isn't a little Catholic Mysticism fun! Jesus wants to party with you if you give him all your loving and He loves Def Leppard too!
I did take back my crucifix from the hospital room in the days after but kept it tucked away as I had strange vibes that I needed to keep it hidden in my pocket for a while. I ended up bringing it to the funeral visitation a few days later as a reminder to contemplate the mystery in the hospital room it had been a part of, as I was still a bit afraid of forgetting it or being ashamed in telling it. I did end up sharing it with an old lady I was somehow related to that I never met before that came down from Minnesota. Young or same age as me people I'm afraid of "triggering" with too much Christianity talk-- they roll their eyes, feel judged, tell me Christianity is a big "red flag" or figure I'm a quack– which I'm all more fine with than I should be– but old people are more than likely have a stronger faith than me so I'm more comfortable. Anyway, emboldened by a receptive retelling I felt the urge after everybody else had gotten their time to see Grandpa in the casket to place the crucifix in with him, to be buried with him forever. I don't think most people saw it since I was careful to only do it late in the service to avoid triggering what I presumed to be the likely Protestant majority and Protestant pastor which I know have historical distaste for the crucifix, but mission accomplished anyway.
In the days following, I had a great conversation with the one Catholic cousin I have where I started soliciting his guidance on how to officially join his church. Simultaneously, I was making loose plans to replace my crucifix when I got back to Portugal. I wasn't planning on visiting Rome anytime soon to replace it at the place I got the original from, but we live very close (bicycle riding distance) to Fatima, Portugal which most assuredly would have crucifixes for sale that I could replace the one I gave to Grandpa. Fatima is a very holy place for Catholics, maybe not as holy as the Vatican, but right up there.
Unexpectedly, my Catholic cousin gifted me a rosary he already had from Fatima the very next day after Grandpa was buried and the crucifix departed from me. There was no way he could have heard about the plans I was making to go to Fatima when I flew home (to Portugal). The sentimentality I had for the Vatican City crucifix, was replaced, almost immediately, with a Fatima Rosary delivered into my hands by someone who most certainly was on call in the following God's will. The beautiful serendipity of my faith journey continues! Next step: the rosary.
One of the things the pastor asked the family beforehand to learn more about Grandpa so he could prepare a funeral sermon was for us to share how Grandpa shared his faith. It was a slightly awkward moment as none of the typical, expected responses of a family following Christianity out in the open were applicable to us. The pastor is right to have asked, as this is one of the most important responsibilities we have on this planet for reasons pertaining to the impermanence in the world in just about every other matter. I searched my self for the answer and followed the influences in my life backward to critical points in my past that may have led me to the spiritual here and now. My cousin had a nice response to to the question she delivered her funeral speech, no doubt under the influence of the Holy Spirit to have come up with such an eloquent answer on short notice, but I felt there might have been a slightly different answer unique to me and that I only now have found in contemplation:
Grandpa liked to tell me a story multiple times as a kid about how he started off thinking he had all the answers and then came to realize his Dad was the wiser one all along. This story I think was my first inoculation against developing for myself the arrogance of a generation presuming its predecessors were always inferior and/or stupid (e.g. modern progressives). Eventually, I found the mentality Grandpa inoculated me against present even in my own esteemed (and wrongly idolized) field of computer science when I found (and learned) an undeniably divine masterpiece of a computer programming language, superior in almost every way to ones of the current era, but was designed too early for its time in the 1950's (i.e. old) and mostly forgotten in the 1980s. Discovering that for myself, I wanted to test if the pattern applied even to those 1950s fathers of computer science, and sure enough, I contined to uncover instances of even greater people (this time pure mathematicians, since this is now well before the computer) going further back yet which sparked an obsession with math that led to more rabbit holes. You can see how a mentality like that eventually will land on the Bible and wondering what wisdom is locked up in both it and the 2000 year old institution that wrote it (the Catholic church). Grandpa played a part in helping me avoid the arrogance of the modern age thinker, which after a long, narrow path inexorably lead this truth seeker to Jesus. If I would have succumbed to the disease of arrogance or pride in the seeking, I never would have made it all the way back in time to the Bible and probably have gotten stuck in the philosophy entertainers of the 17th century in the Age of "so-called" Enlightenment – a.k.a. – the birth of elitism. Grandpa had one of lightest touches on my character to the point of almost being imperceptible. He was as gentle as a dove, as Jesus commands those about to share his word to the world in Matthew 10:16:
"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and gentle as doves."
He obliged with the gentle part and trusted in God to take care of the rest. Good call grandpa. You might have been intuitively wiser than even the pastors of your time. Aggressive evangelization to me at an early age may have backfired, for the faithful are in the midst of wolves indeed and I was in new-wolf-training for a long time. Had you tried on me harder, you would have likely been unprepared as even as a first year engineering student at Iowa State College in 1996 I was taking sociology classes that were very effective at brainwashing me with authoritively stating as fact that faith is something the modern world has outgrown and only valuable now as a historical footnote as the obsolete solution that kept the not-as-modern-as-now society's impoverished happier when times got tough in the era before the inventions of effective entertainment and antidepressants. We were tested on this stuff, there was only one correct response, and it came from a type of character I don't think my Grandpa would agree had all the answers. One of the things those professors didn't have in their instruction was humility, which if you read the Bible, you find out is the only virtue that the devil can't replicate.