Time. Some
wish it could be kept in a bottle. Sometimes it
seems to fly, or even to stand still.
Occasionally, and always when you’re not
looking, it slips away from you...
The Old
Testament tells us, “There is an appointed time
for everything. And there is a time for every
event under heaven.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1) This
includes, of course, the time you are born and
the time you are to die. But I found out the
hard way that there is also a time to let go.
For me, it was 5:00 PM on January 29, 2000, one
year, four months and twenty-two days after my
husband Michael was diagnosed with kidney
cancer.
Michael was
36 years young when the pain in his left side
became too severe to ignore anymore. A trip to
the emergency room revealed a tumor the size of
a grapefruit in his left kidney, so surgery to
remove the diseased organ and surrounding lymph
nodes was scheduled for two days later. Our
three daughters, aged seven, five and four at
that time, were kept blissfully uninformed. For
my husband of eleven years and me, it was,
“Welcome to Cancer 101".
Doctors
were confident they “got it all”, but Michael’s
follow-up CAT scan six weeks later showed cancer
cells in his lungs and lymph system. The fight
was on. The battles were fierce and the enemy’s
attacks relentless, but with our bold faith and
impassioned hope we were sure we’d prevail. We
had knowledge and resources, and we were young
and ready for this challenge. We couldn’t
possibly lose.
Armed with
the information that traditional treatments had
proven ineffective in past cases of his
particular kind of cancer, Michael decided to go
the alternative route. A strict regimen of
taking pills and choking down a foul liquid
concoction that looked like tar and tasted and
smelled even worse, quickly ensued. The therapy
was expensive, but when the flag was planted
triumphantly at the top of the symbolic mountain
he had scaled and not at his grave, Michael knew
it would be worth it.
He seemed
to do very well for a time, going back to work
and carrying on as he had before the dreaded “C”
word entered his life. If Michael was struggling
and in pain, he never let on to anyone. During
various difficulties in every day life, my mom
would always tell me, “And this too shall pass.”
I thought for sure that also applied to my dear
spouse and his fight with renal cell carcinoma.
We would both be victorious and be better,
stronger people for having survived the
experience. We held on to hope with all the
fortitude we could muster.
Christmas,
ringing in the new year-precious time spent with
family and friends. A bout with pneumonia
appeared at first to simply be a minor setback
for Michael. Then the truck arrived in the
driveway delivering the oxygen tank and the
battle lines were redrawn. The deadly assailant
now had the upper hand, but we refused to lay
down our weapons of faith, hope and intense
prayer.
When
Michael entered the hospital, I fought the urge
to despair. When he got progressively worse and
was put in the intensive care unit, I brought in
the big guns: prayer warriors. People from all
over the country - even the world - were praying
feverishly for my husband to win and for cancer
to lose. When the respirator was brought in, and
wires and tubes and medical equipment were what
kept my young husband alive, I still refused to
surrender my belief that Michael would be
miraculously cured. There would be no white flag
waved from ICU room #7. Not this time.
Time. What
time is it? How much time do we have? Have you
got the time? Does anybody really know what time
it is? It was a Saturday morning in January.
Outside the hospital was ice, snow and bitter
cold. Inside was the oppressive heat of
whirring, beeping hospital machinery and stress.
Michael, my beloved, only two days beyond his
38th birthday, was now in a coma.†
The key
asset in my arsenal - my David to Goliath - was
brought in. His name was Joshua, and he’d heard
about my husband through the prayer request put
in at Joshua’s church. He himself had once been
stricken with cancer and given a death sentence.
He not only lived to tell about his experience,
but he thrived and was standing before me
completely unfazed by what he saw and heard -
even now learning the cancer had spread to
several other of Michael’s organs. I tapped into
Joshua’s calm assurance and tenacity, born of
his personal experience. It carried me through
the day, even after Joshua went home, leaving
only my father and me to sit and hope and pray
and never stop believing in miracles. It bore me
along and sustained me...until 5:00 PM.
Michael had
fought hard, but he could no longer do battle
himself. I had fought too in my own way, and
finally my resolve was weakening. “Okay God, I
give up,” I prayed when my dad left me alone to
get something to drink. “I know that You love me
and are with me and that no matter what happens,
the girls and I will be all right.” The weapons
were thrown down and peace reigned once again in
the “land” that was my heart and mind. It’s what
I should have been striving for all that time.
Time. At
5:45 pm, as I held Michael’s hand there in room
#7, his heart stopped beating. Attempts were
made to resuscitate him, but they were to no
avail. I thanked God for Michael’s life, for the
wonderful son, brother, friend, husband and
daddy he was, and for the time we had together.
And I thanked Him for waiting for me to let go,
and for the incredible peace I felt. There will
always be the right time for that.
