by Don Piper
“That’s what I mean. I’m just not sure it’s worth all this pain.”
“The good news is that the pain will ease up as you get better.”
His wife had walked in during the conversation and listened. “I’m just so tired at the lack of progress, and nobody will tell us anything,” she said. “We’re about ready to change doctors.”
“You might find a better doctor,” I said, “but wait a bit. Be patient. I’m sure your doctor is doing his best.”
Then I told them about the time I reached the end of my patience:
“When my doctor came in to see me I was fuming.
“‘Sit down,’ I yelled.
“He did, and for maybe five minutes I complained about everything that bothered and upset me. As I watched his face, I realized I had hurt his feelings. I hadn’t been thinking about him, of course. I was hurting, never pain free, couldn’t sleep, and I wanted answers. ‘I get tired of all this not knowing. I ask you how long I have to wear this, and you say, “Maybe another month, maybe two months, maybe three months.” ’ I wasn’t through yet, and my anger really burst out with another round of complaints. I ended with, ‘Why can’t you give me a straight answer?’
“He dropped his head and said softly, ‘I’m doing the best I can. I don’t know the answers. That’s why I can’t tell you.’
“‘I’m just looking for—’
“‘I know you are, but this isn’t an exact science. We’re reinventing the wheel. We don’t have that much experience in this area, and this is all new technology for us. We’re doing the best we can.’”
After I told Brad and his wife about that incident, I added, “Please be patient with your doctor. He can’t give you answers he doesn’t have. He’ll also tell you things to do and load you down with prescriptions. He’s going to put you in a lot of therapy, and you’re just going to have to learn how to deal with it—with all of it.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, “but I just can’t control my emotions anymore. I’m a cop. I’ve seen a lot of hard, bad, difficult stuff. I find myself just breaking down—I mean, real emotional. Know what I mean?”
“Absolutely. Just go ahead and break down. It’ll happen again.”
“I feel out of control.”
“You are out of control!”
Brad stared at me.
“Think about it. What can you control? Nothing.”
“I can’t even wipe myself.”
“That’s right. You’re totally helpless. There’s nothing you can do or control.”
“Before this I was a weight lifter and a bodybuilder,” he said. “I had a physique you wouldn’t believe.”
“I have no doubt about that.” I could see that he had once been muscular and strong. “But you don’t have that now. You may have a great body again someday, but the inability to get up and do the things that you used to do will cause you to change. Be prepared to change. You’re going to lose weight; muscles will atrophy. You can’t control your body the way you did before.”
His wife was obviously feeling all the stress as well, and she was on the verge of tears. “He just feels so bad, even with medication. I just don’t know what to do.”
“I can suggest a few things. First of all, manage the visits and phone calls. You don’t have to let everyone come whenever they want,” I said. “Be firm. If you allow everyone to come, you’ll wear yourself out trying to be nice. Your friends will understand.”
Then I turned to Brad. “Be prepared for all your therapy, because you’re going to have to do all kinds of difficult things. Do them if you want to learn to walk again. Be patient, because it will take a long time. Probably one of the best things I can tell you is this: Don’t try to act like the Lone Ranger.” I paused briefly and almost smiled, because I remembered how I had been. “Let people know where you hurt and how they can help—especially the people you trust. Let them know so they can do things for you. Let them pray for you. You’ve got a lot of nice folks coming by here, and they want to bring you a cake, cook a meal, or do something for you. Let them express their friendship and love.”
After I had talked a few minutes, I got up to leave. I wrote down my phone number. “Call me. If you’re struggling to go to sleep at three o’clock in the morning or you’re angry, call me. I’ll listen. I’ll understand because I can understand. It’s a small fraternity, and none of us joined it by choice.”
Before I left, Brad said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your coming by. Just visiting with somebody who knows about the pain helps me a lot. You’re the first person I’ve met who understands what it’s like to live with pain twenty-four hours a day.”
“It’s not something I set out to do—visiting people who are where I was,” I said, “but I’m willing to do it. I want to help, but you’re going to have to make the effort to call me. Remember—don’t try to tough it out alone.”
Brad’s wife followed me out to the car and said, “He needed this. In public he tries to be the source of strength and sound positive. In quiet moments he’s frustrated and emotional, and he falls apart. I’ve been really worried about him. Never in our lives together have I seen him this way.”
“I remember my wife working hard all day teaching school and then coming to spend the evening with me,” I said. “Just hang in with him. He will get better.”
I told her that one time when I was at my worst, Eva had tried to encourage me and had said something like, “Just give it time. You’re going to be fine.”
I had exploded with frustration and rage—“What makes you think I’m going to be fine? What are the odds of my ever being fine? Nobody can ever tell me that. Nobody can promise me that.”
To her credit, Eva hadn’t argued. She’d wrapped her arms around me. I had wept. I had never done that before in her presence.
After I told that story to Brad’s wife, I said, “Be prepared for changes in your life and his. He can’t control his emotions, but don’t take it as a personal attack when he yells or screams. It’s the pain and the frustration, not you.” I shook her hand and said, “And for goodness’ sake, call me if you need me. Push Brad to call me.”
After that, I saw Brad four or five times. Weeks later when he was able to get out of the house with his walker, I spotted him in a restaurant. I went over to his table and sat down. “How are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m doing okay. Really okay.” He thanked me again for coming at one of his lowest moments. He still wasn’t in top shape, but he was getting healthy again. When he clasped my hand and held it a long time, I knew it was his way of expressing his appreciation in ways he couldn’t put into words.
I felt grateful to God for being able to help Brad in his dark time.
About two years after my accident, I heard that Chad Vowell had been in a serious car accident. He had been a member of our youth ministry at South Park, and his parents were among the most supportive parents I had at the church. His mother, Carol, was on the committee that came to my hospital room with others to plan youth retreats. I hadn’t been very helpful, but it had been their way of making me feel useful and needed.
Chad had been an outstanding soccer player and was with our youth group about a year before he went to college.
When I called his mother, she told me they had helicoptered Chad to John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. I had no idea just how serious he was until she added, “The report is that he has mangled his lower leg and is in a fixator.”
When I heard the word fixator, I knew I had to see him. I would have gone anyway, because he was a member of South Park. But the word fixator gave extra urgency.
When I walked into his room, Chad lay there depressed, and he obviously didn’t want to talk. This wasn’t the Chad I knew. Before that, he’d always been glad to see me, and his face would light up in recognition. This time he acknowledged my presence but made no effort to engage in conversation.
“Are you okay? Are you going to be all right?” I asked and then loo
ked at his leg. “I see they gave you a fixator.”
“Yeah, they did,” he said.
“Chad, you remember when I had my accident? That’s the same thing they put on me.”
“Really?” he asked. For the first time he looked at me with interest. I don’t know if he’d never seen me with mine or if he just didn’t remember. I leaned closer and said, “Just remember this: I know what it feels like to have one of them.”
His injury was on the lower leg. Because there are two bones in the lower leg it’s less difficult to heal. As I learned before I left, his prognosis was very good.
I was able to talk to that boy, hold his hand, and pray with him in a way that made him realize I identified with his plight. For the first time, he had a sense of what he had to look forward to in his treatment. Until then, like me after my accident, no one would give Chad any specific information. Like me, he felt angry and depressed.
“The pain will last a long time, and the recovery will seem to last forever, but you’ll get better. Just remember that: You will get better.”
And he did.
Cancer claimed Joyce Pentecost one week before her thirty-ninth birthday. I loved her very much. She was married to Eva’s brother Eddie and left behind two beautiful redheaded kids, Jordan and Colton.
Not only was Joyce one of the liveliest people I’ve ever met, and a fireball of a singer, but she could also light up a room by merely entering it. She rarely just sang a song; she belted it in the great tradition of Ethel Merman.
I felt honored to speak at her memorial service at First Baptist Church of Forrest City, Arkansas. More than six hundred people packed the auditorium. Because Joyce had recorded several CDs of Christian music, she left a legacy for the rest of us. On that sunny afternoon, we heard Joyce sing her own benediction.
Following her recorded music, her father, Reverend Charles Bradley, delivered a message of hope and salvation. He told the crowd, “Years ago Joyce and I made a covenant. If I went first, she would sing at my funeral. And if she went first, I would speak at hers. Today I am fulfilling that promise to my baby girl.”
That moment still stays with me. Melancholy smiles broke out, tears flowed, but I don’t think anyone felt anger or hopelessness.
After Joyce’s father concluded his message, it was my turn to speak.
“Some may ask today, ‘How could Joyce die?’” I said. “But I would say to you the better question is, how did she live? She lived well, beloved. She lived very well.”
I told the hurting throng that Joyce was a redheaded comet streaking across the stage of life, that she lived and loved to make people happy, that she was a devoted friend, an ideal daughter, a doting aunt, a sweet sister, a loving mother, and a wonderful wife. I admitted freely that I didn’t have the answer to the question that must have penetrated many hearts in the room: Why?
“There is comfort when there are no answers,” I said. “Joyce firmly believed that if she died, she would instantly be with God. She believed that if she lived, God would be with her. That was her reason for living. That can be our reason for carrying on.”
I concluded by sharing one personal moment. The last extended conversation I had with Joyce before she returned home from the hospital was about heaven. She never tired of hearing me describe my trip to heaven, so we “visited” there one final time. We talked of the angels, the gate, and our loved ones. (Joyce’s own mother had died of cancer.) Joyce always wanted me to describe the music, and our final conversation together was no different.
“Just a few days ago,” I said to the congregation, “I believe God was sitting behind those gates, and he told the angels, ‘What we need around here is a good redheaded soprano.’
“‘That would be Joyce Pentecost!’ the angels said.
“God sent for Joyce, and she answered the call. She is singing now with the angelic hosts. Joyce Pentecost is absent from the body but present with the Lord.”
My final words at the service were a question: “Can you lose someone if you know where she is?”
I was thirty-eight years old when I was killed in that car wreck.
Joyce was the same age when she was diagnosed with cancer. I survived the ordeal; Joyce did not. But I know this: Because I was able to experience heaven, I was able to prepare her and her loved ones for it. And now I am preparing you.
Many times since my accident I have wished someone who had already gone through the ordeal of wearing a fixator for months had visited me in the hospital. I know it would have relieved a lot of my anxiety.
Whenever I hear about people having a fixator, I try to contact them. When I talk to those facing long-term illness, I try to be totally honest. There is no easy way through that recovery process, and they need to know that. Because I have been there, I can tell them (and they listen) that although it will take a long time, eventually they will get better. I also talk to them about some of the short-term problems they’ll face.
My visits with Chad and Brad and others also remind me that God still has a purpose for me on earth. During that long recovery period, I sometimes longed for heaven. Looking back, however, I can see how the personal experiences I have shared with others provided a gentle pull earthward when I was in heaven. “When God is ready to take me,” I was finally able to say, “he’ll release me.” In the meantime, I try to offer as much comfort as possible to others.
Like me, when other victims first see the fixator attached to their leg, and especially when they begin to experience the pain and their inability to move, depression flows through them. They have no idea what’s going to happen next. Even though doctors try to reassure them of recovery, they hurt too much to receive comfort from the doctors’ words.
Sometimes, however, the patients may be inadvertently misled into saying to me, “I’ll get over this soon.”
“You may get over it, but it won’t be soon,” I say. “This is a long-term commitment, and there’s no way to speed up the process. When you face injuries of this magnitude, there is no easy way out. You have to live with it for now.”
I could share other stories, but these are the experiences that kept me going through some of my own dark periods. I found purpose again in being alive. I still long to return to heaven, but for now, this is where I belong. I am serving my purpose here on earth.
17
LONGING
FOR HOME
You do this because you are looking forward to the joys of heaven—as you have been ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
COLOSSIANS 1:5
One of my favorite stories is about a little girl who left her house and her mother didn’t know where she had gone. Once the mother missed her, she worried that something might have happened to her child. She stood on the front porch and yelled her daughter’s name several times.
Almost immediately the little girl ran from the house next door. The mother hugged her, said she was worried, and finally asked, “Where have you been?”
“I went next door to be with Mr. Smith.”
“Why were you over there?”
“His wife died and he is very sad.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that,” the mother said. “What did you do?”
“I just helped him cry.”
In a way, that’s what I do. Sharing my experiences is my way of crying with others in pain.
I’ve discovered one reason I can bring comfort to people who are facing death themselves or have suffered the loss of a loved one: I’ve been there. I can give them every assurance that heaven is a place of unparalleled and indescribable joy.
Without the slightest doubt, I know heaven is real. It’s more real than anything I’ve ever experienced in my life. I sometimes say, “Think of the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, the best thing that’s ever happened to you, and everything in between; heaven is more real than any of those things.”
Since my return to earth, I’ve been acutely aware that all of us are on a pilgrimage
. At the end of this life, wherever we go—heaven or hell—life will be more real than this one we’re now living.
I never thought of that before my accident, of course. Heaven was a concept, something I believed in, but I didn’t think about it often.
In the years since my accident, I’ve repeatedly thought of the last night Jesus was with his disciples before his betrayal and crucifixion. Only hours before he began that journey to heaven, he sat with his disciples in the upper room. He begged them not to be troubled and to trust in him. Then he told them he was going away and added, “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am” (John 14:2–3 niv).
I had never really noticed it before, but twice Jesus used the word place—a location. Perhaps that may not stir most people, but I think about it often. It is a literal place, and I can testify that I know that place. I’ve been there. I know heaven is real.
Since my accident, I’ve felt more intensely and deeply than ever before. A year in a hospital bed can do that for anyone, but it was more than just that. Those ninety minutes in heaven left such an impression on me that I can never be the same person I was. I can never again be totally content here, because I live in anticipation.
I experienced more pain than I thought a human could endure and still live to tell about it. In spite of all that happened to me during those months of unrelenting pain, I still feel the reality of heaven far, far more than the suffering I endured.
Because I am such a driven person and hardly ever slow down, I have often felt I needed to explain why I can’t do certain things. When I’m fully dressed, most folks would never realize I have such debilitating injuries. However, when I face an activity that this reconstructed body just can’t do (and people are sometimes surprised how simple some of those acts are), I often get strange responses.
