453 Steve’s Terminal Cancer Part 7
I spent the morning with Steve yesterday.
Over the 18 years we have been buddies I’ve spent a lot of mornings with Steve. Steve is a friend, fellow pastor and the nicest person I have ever met. He’s probably nice even when he’s angry; but he’s so nice that no one’s ever seen him angry.
Steve has been on a beautiful, terrible journey this past year and a half. He was diagnosed with acute leukemia. After treatments failed to cure or even slow down the leukemia’s deadly advance, Steve was sent home with Hospice to die in a few weeks. But Steve didn’t die. God healed him and Steve eventually returned to work. Everyone was amazed. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Unfortunately, just as Steve was getting back into his groove the leukemia returned. Again, Steve underwent treatments. Again, they didn’t work and Steve was sent home with weeks, indeed days, to live. Again, Steve miraculously rebounded. However, it wasn’t long before the leukemia was back – this time to stay.
I spent the morning with Steve yesterday.
Throughout this ordeal, our visits fluctuated in regularity based upon Steve’s health. The healthier he was, the less I visited. I’ve been visiting Steve a lot lately.
As I sat with Steve yesterday I got this awkward feeling that I wouldn’t see him again. It made me sad. I think Steve felt it too because he looked at me the way I was looking at him. Neither of us said anything, we just looked at each other in a knowing way. I wish I would have said something.
Today I got a really bad case of the flu and couldn’t visit Steve. I called and talked to him over the phone, still worried that I might not see him again. I really wanted to tell him good-bye, but I didn’t. That was the last earthly conversation I’ll ever have with Steve.
After sleeping, Steve woke up and briefly talked with his lovely wife Kay and went back to sleep. When he woke up he was in another place. His journey on this 3rd rock from the Sun instantly ended and his next journey started. (I think heaven is a journey more than a destination.)
As I ponder the news of Steve’s death, I’m surprised to find myself smiling. I thought I would cry. But I keep reliving the last look Steve and I exchanged in which he seemed to being saying, “I’m really, really tired. I think I’m going to go home to be with my Father. See you later Clothman.”
Solomon wisely said, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, …a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance… (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4).
There will be many times when I will cry, but not yet. My buddy is no longer filled with leukemia. He will never again receive a chemotherapy treatment. He can run and hop again. He is healed. He is free. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
I spent the morning with Steve yesterday.
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