One year ago today, after Michael had been hospitalized for two nights, we received the news from his neurologist that his second CT scan revealed a massive stroke on the left side of his brain that he would not recover from. In spite of that news and all the tears and heaviness that fell over us that day, God gave us reason to marvel at His goodness. I will never forget what happened that evening. Below is my account of that day.

Thursday, February 5, 2015:

Almost three whole days had passed since Michael had a small seizure and lapsed into unconsciousness, and I wondered what this day, Thursday, would bring. I knew he would be given another CAT scan sometime during the morning, and I was anxious to see what, if anything, would be revealed. The first CAT scan had been clear, why wouldn’t this one be?

When I arrived in Michael’s room in the neurology wing on the fourth floor of the hospital, his sister Patty was already there, and his two oldest daughters Buffy and Daphne, truly stellar young women who have taught me a lot about love, had driven up from their homes and families in southern Minnesota the night before.

Michael had been wheeled to the CAT scan place early and was just being returned to his room when I arrived. His face looked more gaunt than the day before, partially because the only nourishment he was receiving was IV fluids, and also (we later learned) because of what was slowly happening in his brain. His jaw was much more relaxed and the clenching activity in his left hand had settled and eased a bit.

We did what we had done for days now — talked to him, rubbed him, said encouraging things, sat with long periods of silence, put tiny sips of water in his mouth by spoon and watched carefully for him to swallow. Thursday morning I could tell it was taking him a lot longer to swallow even 1/4 a teaspoon of water. He could no longer return my kiss, and he seemed to be more deeply unconscious than before. I asked one of the nurses who came in every hour to care for him if this was considered a coma, and it took a few seconds for her to consider and then answer, “Well, not quite. He’s more stuporous, I’d say.” I looked it up and could see the difference between the two, but I can’t say it was encouraging to hear the term.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Michael’s neurologist did his rounds at night, so when another physician came in around 11:00 a.m. to tell us he had the results of that morning’s CAT scan, I was relieved we could know then and not have to wait until after dinner time…but I did brace myself.

Dr. Evans quietly said that he did not have good news for us, and that the results of the scan clearly revealed that Michael had had a massive, ischemic stroke, affecting the entire left hemisphere of his brain. So yes, he had experienced a seizure on Monday morning while baking a cake with Josh at the veterans home, but the seizure was because something catastrophic had just happened in his brain, and a seizure with Todd’s Paralysis was not what was going on.

The doctor very soberly told us why this stroke hadn’t shown up on Monday night when the first CAT scan was done after Michael was brought to the ER. Maybe some of you know this already, but for those that don’t, I’m going to share what we learned.

Hemorrhagic strokes are the kind when someone has a bleed in their brain. These kinds of strokes are often very painful, accompanied by what’s sometimes called a “thunderclap headache” due to the sudden, almost unbearable pressure from the bleeding under the skull, and they always show up on a CAT scan.

Ischemic strokes are different — they are caused by a piece of plaque breaking off, usually from the carotid artery in the neck, and this bit of plaque flows in the bloodstream up toward the head and causes a blockage, stopping crucial blood supply to the brain. The result is dramatic, just as we saw in Michael because he could no longer respond to us, and over the next few days, brain tissue slowly dies. An ischemic stroke does not show up on a CAT scan right away because there’s been no hemorrhagic bleed. But after a few days, a CAT scan will reveal an ischemic stroke because the affected brain tissue is now shadowed, looking slightly darker than the healthy brain tissue.

And, mercifully, an ischemic stroke is painless.

After I took a moment to let this all sink in, I asked Dr. Evans if there was any chance at all that Michael could recover from this stroke. He put his head down a little, and shook his head no.

I thanked Dr. Evans for forthrightly answering my questions, he expressed his condolences for the news he’d had to deliver, and he told us that Dr. McKee would be speaking with us that evening, giving us more information about what to expect. When the doctor left the room I took one look at Patty and burst into tears. I sat down in a chair, put my face in my hands, and cried wracking sobs as quietly as I could. Patty cried too.

Barring the most spectacular miracle we could imagine, this was it. Michael was not going to make it.

There’s nothing I can say to describe how that forceful blow to my heart, mind and soul felt. I could reach for a Thesaurus and employ words like despairing and nightmarish, yet they only pale when compared to the realization that I was soon going to have to watch the light of my life go out. I still don’t know any words that adequately convey that kind of almost-paralyzing grief. And yet, I knew in my heart that Parkinson’s Disease and the more recent cruelty of Lewy Body Dementia was nothing Michael would want to return to. In the dark of night I had cried out to God many times to release Michael from the prison his body had become. I believed this was God’s severe mercy for my beloved.

The next thing I did was blow my nose, pick up my cell phone and walk out of Michael’s room, down the hall to a solarium/family waiting room with a view of Lake Superior, and I sat down on a couch and called my daughters, one by one. I don’t remember all the details of what I told them because I think a grey fog of grief had already begun to settle over me, but I let them know what the CAT scan revealed, and that their daddy was going to die soon.

Within twenty minutes our son-in-law Chris was there with us, because of course Sharon had called him, sobbing, the second she and I had gotten off the phone. He immediately took the week off from work and said he would be there with us, and if I needed one thing or a hundred, he would do whatever I asked. Over the next hour, daughters and grandchildren, sons-in-law and friends streamed in, bringing their hugs, tears and prayers. Some of our daughters had asked for prayer for Michael through their Facebook accounts, and now a lot of people knew what had really happened to Michael, and also what was soon to come.

Two old friends, Chuck and Sally, called to ask if they could come and visit, and of course we were so happy when they arrived Thursday evening with a Bible and the strong presence of the Holy Spirit all about them. Michael had been unresponsive all day, and we knew officially why that was now. Chuck stood close to the head of Michael’s bed and greeted him with a firm, loving touch, and said, “Michael, I’m going to read some scripture to you,” as he opened to Psalm 91.

The crowded, yet quiet room listened as Chuck read aloud, “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.'”

Chuck only got this far into the chapter when something exquisitely beautiful and breathtaking took place. Michael, who was completely unresponsive and whose brain was dying minute by minute, lifted his chin, opened his mouth and wailed, tears streaming out of his eyes and down the sides of his face, sob after sob escaping from his mouth. We were all struck by what was happening, and we knew Michael was responding to the scripture he had revered and read, loved and sang, countless times since he decided to follow Christ when he was 30 years old.

After this deep wave of emotion had washed over Michael, Chuck finished reading the Psalm out loud, and Michael continued to demonstrate all that evening that he could hear and understand what was being said all around him. The only way he could respond was with sobbing so plaintive and pure I felt like taking my shoes off or even putting my face straight down on the floor, it felt so sacred. He couldn’t talk, open his eyes, do anything on command, but when he heard the conversation turn to his Savior Jesus, he cried. When the name of a dear friend was mentioned by someone in the back of the room, Michael heard that name and wailed again. Before Chuck and Sally left, Chuck leaned down over Michael and said, “Michael, look how much your family loves you.” And his face contorted and his lips pulled back away from those beautiful teeth and the tears streamed….and even though some would have said it was an “ugly cry,” it was beautiful. Absolutely full of beauty. We were almost speechless from the impact of witnessing something so precious. We were experiencing something we knew we’d never want to forget. We all knew that Michael’s spirit was alive and well even as his body was rapidly failing, and he was responding to the things he knew were most important in all of life: Jesus, God’s Word, and the people he loved.

For several hours, we were given the gift of seeing that beauty come forth intermittently when Michael actually smiled at something funny Sharon said to him, when other family members and friends recalled aloud special memories, and he would gasp and cry, tears streaming.

I wanted to stay as late into the night as possible so I could be with Michael, and be there when Dr. McKee made his rounds, but I finally gave up and went home around 7:00 p.m. Friends had come by to provide a nice dinner to our Fosters, to tend to our dogs, and I had much to do and consider. I must have just missed Dr. McKee at St. Luke’s because he called me at home around 7:30 to tell me he had read the CAT scan and it was even more dire than Dr. Evans had reported. I guess a neurologist sees more in a brain scan than a regular physician, and Dr. McKee all but told me that the damage to Michael’s brain had put him in a near-vegetative state.

I asked the doctor how long someone usually lived with this kind of ischemic stroke, and he answered, “Well, the textbooks say four to five days, and I have seen a few people live up to eight or nine days. But the average is about a week.” I quickly did the math in my head and felt my heart race a bit when I figured that Michael was getting close to the fourth day. I knew I had to bring him home. I told Dr. McKee, and he gently encouraged me to move him to hospice in the hospital, inferring that it would be much easier on me, but I wanted Michael in his own house once more. Dr. McKee said that he would put in the order for hospice home care right away, and he felt hopeful that everything could be arranged for Michael to come home the next day, Friday.

When I went to bed that night, even in my utter exhaustion and sorrow I felt a sense of urgency, and also a strange sense of being untethered, all mixed together. I thought of the passage in 2 Corinthians which I had read to Michael many times in the past year, and knew these words were for us now, more than ever:

The precious picture below is of Michael and one of our grandsons, Elijah. It was taken by our daughter Sharon about ten months before Michael died.

One year ago today, we had all gathered and prayed, and were waiting to learn what was going to happen with Michael. He was in the hospital, largely unresponsive, and what follows are my thoughts from that day, the third of his seven day journey to heaven.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

On Wednesday when I arrived at the hospital, once again the nurses reported that there hadn’t been any notable change in Michael’s condition overnight.

Due to the high risk of his lungs filling up, his bed had to be kept at a 45 degree angle, so even though he was turned on alternate sides and changed every two hours, he never really got to lay down flat.

His eyes were closed, his left hand was gripping and opening, so the rolled washcloth was still needed, and I could see that his face looked more slack than it had the day before. He kept his mouth open more. He was still coughing occasionally and yawning at least twice an hour. He was able to chew and swallow the small ice chips we were giving him, and as anyone would do who was waiting for good news, we rejoiced at these things as if they were little arrows of proof pointing to his recovery, or at least to his coming out of unconsciousness. “He’s coughing! He groaned a little! Look, he can still chew the ice and swallow it!”

I think the most encouraging thing that happened on Wednesday was around lunchtime when several of us were gathered in Michael’s hospital room. Michael seemed a little closer to the surface than he had been earlier in the day, so I hugged him and kissed him, talked to him and told him about all the people there who loved him so much. I gently opened one of his eyes with my thumb and forefinger, and right at that moment our son-in-law Jeremy walked from one part of the room to another. Michael’s eye followed Jeremy’s movement very deliberately and accurately and we were thrilled. Of course then I opened Michael’s eye and got down close to him so he could see me and I whispered happily, “Hi Michael! We’re all here! It’s me! You’re in the hospital and they’re taking great care of you, and we’re waiting with you until you wake up a little more. We love you and you are going to be just fine!” And because we were certain he had seen with that eye, and we believed he could still hear us even though he couldn’t yet respond, we all quietly and lovingly told him how crazy we were about him, all throughout the day. All the way until dark, those of us there sang to him, prayed for him, let him rest in quiet, massaged his limbs, and kissed him.

Michael’s wonderful sister and only sibling Patty had been there every day, waiting with me and speaking so compassionately to Michael. I have never heard my husband utter one negative thing about his beloved sister the whole 34 years we were together. And she didn’t hesitate to show her devotion to him. What a beautiful thing! After Patty went home late Wednesday afternoon, her husband Joe came to the hospital, and for quite a while it was just Michael, Joe and me together. Joe saw Michael squeeze my hand, noticed things he felt were hopeful, and he told me, and later Patty, that he felt the next day Michael would be waking up. That sounded good to me, after all it had now been almost 60 hours since Michael’s seizure. If this was Todd’s Paralysis, we were already past the common 48 hour waking point and moving toward the 72 hour point, which seemed ominous to me.

Our neurologist Dr. McKee makes his rounds at night, not in the morning like most doctors do, and since I had to go home and make dinner for our Fosters by 5:00, I missed his visit. He called me at home that night after he had seen Michael, and said that when he had gotten close to Michael’s face and yelled his name, he opened his eyes briefly. That sounded encouraging, but as our conversation progressed, for the first time I thought I detected more caution, less optimism in Dr. McKee’s voice than I had the days before. When I mentioned that Michael had followed Jeremy with his eye and had squeezed my hand, Dr. McKee hesitated very briefly and said, “Well, that’s good. I do think it’s time to order another CAT scan for tomorrow morning, however.” I didn’t know then what he would be looking for in this second scan, what he expected to find, but I had a feeling Todd’s Paralysis was no longer what he thought was going on with my husband. I wanted to know as much as possible, so of course I consented for the scan.

After cleaning up after dinner I got into my nightgown, let the dogs out one last time for the night, and sat in silence in our room on Michael’s and my comfortable king-sized bed. It felt like tomorrow, Thursday, would be a momentous day, due to the second scan scheduled. I contacted our daughters to let them know about Dr. McKee’s call, and in spite of how tenuous things were seeming, we knew we were all drawing close together in love, praying for Michael, and trusting God for whatever would come.

I turned out the lamp on my nightstand, turned over on my side there in the dark, and listened to the deep doggy breathing of Edith and Millie who were curled in canine circles on Michael’s side of the bed.

Michael’s side of the bed.

For a brief moment or two, I allowed my mind to go to the sorrowful place of wondering if Michael would ever lay his eyes, his body, on that bed again.

The pain was too deep and the wailing too loud. When the spell of fear and grief eventually faded, I asked God for sleep, and I begged Him to touch my Michael, the light of my life, the man of my dreams, and to be there with him all night in his hospital room, so that Michael could feel He was there.

All week I’m republishing the seven posts from a year ago, during the week Michael began his journey away from us and on toward heaven.

I love this picture of him which was taken in January of 2007, in the actual car that was driven in the series we loved called All Creatures Great and Small. This was in the Yorkshire village of Thirsk, where James Herriot (real name Alf Wight) practiced veterinary medicine and eventually chronicled his life in his wonderful books.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

On Monday night when I got home from the hospital, I sent out a few texts and emails updating people about Michael, and mostly asking for prayer.

When the sun came up Tuesday morning it was fourteen degrees below zero, which seemed apt to me. Our Foster women were of course concerned about Michael and I told them what I knew, and that we were all praying that he would wake up from this seizure-induced unconsciousness. All three of us exchanged hugs before they went out the door heading to their jobs, and I was touched when they both told me they’d be praying all day for Michael.

I was anxious to get the necessary morning tasks done — dogs out, dogs in, dishwasher loaded and started, and then off to St. Luke’s Hospital I went, leaning forward over the steering wheel I’m sure, trying to get there as fast as legally possible.

Has ever a woman been so excited to see her beloved? I can’t imagine even wives long separated from their imprisoned husbands, or the ones thousands of miles apart from their deployed servicemen, feeling any more anticipation than I felt that morning as I rode the elevator up to the fourth floor of the hospital, even though I had been with Michael just ten hours before.

I stopped at the nurses’ station on my way to his room and asked how he had done during the night. His nurse told me he had coughed and moaned off and on, and that his left hand had been so active they had put a rolled wash cloth in it to prevent him from rubbing his skin raw. But other than that there had been no change. He was being given the anti-seizure medication Keppra through his IV, because everyone was operating on the assumption that this almost comatose state was from a seizure.

I felt a rush of joy just to see my Michael. I hugged and kissed him and said all the things over and over I wanted him to know, and believed he could hear and feel everything, even if he couldn’t respond. I stroked his face, massaged his shoulders and legs occasionally, and sat with him all day. I was also happy to see that he could chew the small ice chips I placed in his mouth, and easily swallow.

I was so grateful for the family and friends who were there that day, sharing their hugs and prayers, tears and laughter.  Everyone was encouraged by the possibility that with Todd’s Paralysis, Michael could wake up at any time, but in the meantime it was like all my people had come to help me keep vigil.

This photo is of our youngest daughter Sara cuddled up to her daddy.

Late Tuesday afternoon I spoke to Dr. McKee and he told me he had seen this kind of episode before in seizure patients, especially in older folks, and said he wasn’t particularly surprised by Michael’s lack of response. When I asked him directly if he had seen people be this unresponsive and still wake up days later, he answered kindly, “Oh yes. We’ll give it another day or two and he could definitely come out of this yet. If he doesn’t, I will order another CAT scan for Thursday morning to see if there’s something going on in his brain that the first scan didn’t show.”

I mostly just heard the first part of his answer, and when our conversation was over I put my hands over my face and burst into tears. I was so relieved that Dr. McKee had seen all of this before and that he wasn’t worried yet. I kept sobbing, “Thank you Lord, thank you Jesus! Thank you thank you thank you!”

I really think in hindsight, I was in sort of a fog during the early days following Michael’s hospitalization. Today I asked my daughters to help me remember some details I might not be recalling, and Carolyn reminded me that on Tuesday, February 3rd when she and her family were there, she played the song “If I Were a Rich Man” from the movie soundtrack of Fiddler on the Roof, one of Michael’s longtime favorites. Oh, he loved that movie. We chuckled as we all listened, commenting on how Michael probably thought deep down inside he was Tevye, the bearded, hard-working father of five daughters and the husband of a strong-willed wife, who wanted to please God and also wouldn’t have minded a little extra money in his pouch. *Grin*

Another thing Carolyn reminded me about was that her husband Jeremy, Michael’s son of the heart, his hunting companion, and a skilled and compassionate nurse, tended to Michael so beautifully when he was there visiting that day. Even though Jeremy works at another hospital, he changed Michael, kissed him and cried as he did, expressing his devotion to this man he loved like a second father.

That evening I went home a little earlier since my friend Ginny had texted and told me she was bringing dinner for us. She delivered a delicious feast, and I was struck by what a lavish gift a meal is for a family in crisis. I have taken many a dinner over the years to couples with new babies, people recovering from surgery, those who were grieving, and it always felt so minimal and not as helpful as I wished it could be. Being on the receiving end though, I felt differently. What a help it was to sit down to a delicious meal with our Fosters, who were exclaiming about how good it all tasted…so much so that it made me cry with relief and gratitude.

When I went to bed on Tuesday night, I felt a little niggling worry in my chest. I kept praying and thanking God for all He had done for us, for the ways He poured His love out on us through our family and friends. I truly felt so loved and supported. But I wanted to hurry up and go to sleep so I could wake up the next morning, head right down to St. Luke’s, and hear from the nurses that Michael had shown signs of coming out of his unconscious state during the night.

But that isn’t what happened.

One year ago today my beloved husband Michael suffered the massive ischemic stroke that would take his life a week later. Monday, February 2nd through Monday, February 9th, 2015 was a week my family will never forget of course, but uppermost in our minds even now is how sacred and beautiful the week was in all its sorrow. In his cherished memory, I’ll be republishing the posts from each day of Michael’s journey to heaven for the next week.

Thank you friends, for stopping by…

Monday, February 2, 2015:

Does anyone ever wake up on a given morning and sense that what will happen on that day will change everything, forever? I would imagine there are some people who have experienced that, but I can’t say I’m one of them.

Oh, I knew the day I walked my teary, twelve year-old self down the center aisle of the First Baptist Church in Covina, California to ask Jesus to come into my life that it would change everything, and it did. I knew the days I gave birth to my three wonderful daughters, my life would never be the same, and of course it hasn’t been. When I married Michael on June 28, 1981 and prepared to move with my two little girls to his home in American Siberia (Duluth, MN) to be with this man who had swept me off my feet before we’d ever met, I knew a new life was beginning, and I was so happy and expectant about the changes the future would bring.

But when I got out of bed while it was still dark on the bitterly cold first Monday in February of 2015, I had no idea what the day would bring. As I always do, I put on my slippers, clicked up the heat, fed the dogs and let them out, turned on a little music and began getting medications and breakfasts ready for our two sweet Foster residents. After seeing them off to their jobs, after getting dressed and throwing in a load of laundry, I was planning to meet my dear friend Su later that morning for a little cup of tea at a newer tea shop in our area called The Snooty Fox. When Su and I got there we learned it wasn’t open on Mondays, so we decided to have lunch at the nearest eatery, The Chester Creek Cafe.

As nice as The Snooty Fox and The Chester Creek Cafe are, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to bring myself to visit them again. Because as I was driving the short distance from one business to the other, my cell phone rang and the charge nurse at the veterans home where my husband Michael had been receiving care for the past 214 days told me that it appeared that Michael had had a seizure. (Later I learned that around 10:30 a.m., Michael had been helping Josh, one of the fantastic recreation staff people there, bake a cake. As he was sitting in his wheelchair, Josh told me later, Michael slowly and slightly arched his back and quietly moaned. “Michael, are you okay?” Josh asked right away, and Michael replied that he was. In less than a minute it happened again, and this time Michael slowly slumped and lost consciousness and was rushed back to his room where the nursing staff began taking his vitals and assessing him.) When I took the call from Tim, the nurse, he said that Michael’s vitals were stable but that he wasn’t very responsive.

Here’s the part that I still can’t fathom, as I look back on this fateful morning. Instead of driving the 60 miles up the north shore of Lake Superior immediately, I went ahead and met Su at the cafe and we had a quick lunch. I told her about the call and of course we were concerned, but I have no idea why I didn’t just drop everything and peel rubber that very moment to go to my husband. Was it because he had had a seizure like this before, a couple of years ago, and came out of it in less than an hour? I don’t know. Did I go ahead and eat my soup because I knew Michael was in good hands and there wasn’t much that could be done anyway? No clue. Was I numb with the news because we’ve been through so much with Michael’s health these past many years, and it just didn’t sink in how grim things could be? I hope so. But the fact of the matter is, I did not feel the sharp stab of worry and the adrenaline rush one would expect with serious news, and so I waited an hour before driving north. All the way there I expected I would see Michael on his bed when I arrived, nursing staff tending to him, and he would greet me with that one-in-a-million smile I love, and after a few hours, he would be back to his level of normal. At least as normal as one can be with advanced Parkinson’s Disease and Lewy Body Dementia.

But that’s not how it happened. When I walked into Michael’s room, the doctor who’d been summoned and the main nurse were there, and they told me he was paralyzed on his right side, and had not been able to answer them, even though one of his eyes was open and obviously seeing. They suspected a stroke. I sat by my beloved husband’s side and leaned down to kiss him, hug him and whisper to him. He could look at me with one eye, and at one point he did try very hard to speak to me, but only a few stuttered consonants came out. I was thrilled he could return my kiss. I was relieved when he could chew and swallow some tiny ice chips and I kept feeding him those. I prayed that God would help Michael and allow His presence to be felt, that He would bring His peace, and I sang quietly to him, held his good hand, and leaned in to kiss him every minute or so, and thanked God with each responsive pucker of his lips.

The doctor told me that there are two kinds of strokes, one caused by a bleed and one caused by a blockage, but either of these, especially with all of Michael’s health/brain factors, could potentially be very serious. She gently said she thought it was appropriate that nothing heroic be done and that we let nature take its course. And indeed, Michael had clearly stated years before that if something catastrophic health-wise should ever happen to him (as if Parkinson’s and Lewy Body Dementia don’t rock one’s world enough), he wanted no heroic measures taken, but wanted to be made comfortable and allowed to exit this earth and move to heaven with Jesus, where his heart had been set on since he was thirty years old. Of course I would honor his wishes, and had no desire to put him through anything grueling like a brain surgery, but the longer I sat there with him, the longer I looked at this beautiful man I have loved for almost 34 years, the more I realized I had to know. Even if what was happening to him was a devastating stroke, I needed to know exactly what we were dealing with. I knew I’d have regrets if I didn’t find out what was going on with Michael.

So I told the nurses and doctor I wanted an ambulance ordered so Michael could be transported to a large Duluth hospital, one hour south of the veterans home in Silver Bay. Everyone graciously and quickly responded to my decision, and many staff people I’d grown to respect and even love began getting Michael ready. Paperwork was printed out for me to take to St. Luke’s Hospital, a hoyer lift was used to place him on the gurney when the ambulance attendants arrived, and a quiet, concerned circle of people made up of staff and other veterans’ wives were there to hug me goodbye and wish us well. Their eyes told me how much they cared for Michael.

I followed the ambulance for the 65 mile drive to the hospital, and by the time I parked and hurried in, there was a flurry of medical personnel tending to Michael in the Emergency Room, they had an IV in him, had taken blood, noted that his blood pressure was uncharacteristically high, and were preparing him for a chest x-ray and a CAT scan. Two of our daughters were there with us, and Michael’s sister Patty and her husband Joe arrived too. By this time Michael’s eyes were closed and he couldn’t seem to open them on command, but he was squeezing our hands hard with his good left hand. His right side was completely paralyzed, although there was no droop in any part of his face that you sometimes hear about with a stroke.

The CAT scan only took about ten minutes, and it wasn’t long before the doctor came in to tell us it was clear. No sign of brain tumor, no evidence of a bleed in the brain, which meant no hemorrhagic stroke, and this was good news, and also puzzling. Then what was going on? The doctor said they were going to admit him to the neurology floor, and that they suspected Michael had experienced a seizure with resulting Todd’s Paralysis. You better be sure I googled that as soon as he left the room. And I was encouraged by what I read. Apparently after someone has a seizure (and why the seizure in the first place? perhaps some abnormal brain activity near an old, mild stroke site), they can be paralyzed on one side and fairly unresponsive for up to 48 hours afterward. This doctor had actually seen this. Oh happy day! I grabbed onto that hope and went with it, praying that Michael would come out of this in the next day or two, and that he had Todd’s Paralysis from the seizure he’d so clearly had that morning while baking a cake with Josh.

Later that night as they were getting Michael all settled in to his private room right across from the nurse’s station on the neurology wing, I waited for Dr. McKee the neurologist to arrive. Michael had consulted with him years before and we trusted him. Dr. McKee was kind enough to come in at 10:00 that night, and after doing many tests he confirmed his agreement with the original ER doctor, that this could be Todd’s Paralysis from the seizure that morning. There were several things that were not presenting, if it were a large stroke, like the facial droop. Michael’s face never had the look of a man who’d had a serious stroke. Dr. McKee explained a lot to me that I won’t put here for the sake of time and space, but when I drove home on Monday night after speaking with him, I was much more hopeful than I had been earlier in the day, and ever so grateful I’d made the decision to have Michael transported to the hospital.

My prayer request became that God would bring Michael out of this Todd’s Paralysis and that he and I would have time together again. And our daughters and friends were joining me in this prayer. Now I, possibly more than any other person in Michael’s life, knew that Parkinson’s and Lewy Body Dementia were nothing wonderful to come back to. I wasn’t asking the Lord to bring him back to what he’d been before so he could go on suffering for the predicted seven horror-filled years an average LBD patient experiences. Selfishly, I wanted to look into those big, expressive, kind eyes again, even if just for a short time. I wanted to feel his super strong hands squeeze mine again. I wanted to smell his neck, which has been the best smelling neck I’ve ever encountered in my 57 years. I wanted to hear his almost-gone voice whisper the things into my ear that he had the day before: “I love you so much… I would marry you all over again in a minute… You are still so beautiful to me… I think about you all the time Julie…”  For my own selfish reasons, I couldn’t bear to even think of never having these times with Michael again.

I guess the quandary was, I didn’t want Michael to suffer anymore, but I didn’t want to be without him either.

Thankfully, yes, oh sooooo thankfully, God is the One who makes those decisions, not me. But I get ahead of myself a bit.

After Dr. McKee and I finished talking, he went out to the nurse’s station to work on Michael’s chart and orders, and I knew it was time for me to go home. I only had three miles to drive. I would have stayed the night in Michael’s room if I didn’t have Fosters who would need me early the next morning, and two little dogs who probably wanted to go out. I left around 11:00 p.m., and I gently laid myself against Michael’s chest as I bent over him. He could still squeeze with his left hand, although not on command. When I kissed him, he kissed me back. We puckered and pecked like that for a good minute, and I told him what a phenomenal man he was and how in the world had God ever tricked him into loving me was beyond my comprehension. 🙂 I prayed aloud softly that Jesus and many powerful angels would stay close with him all night long, that he would feel the peace that passes all understanding, and that he would rest well and not be afraid. I told him I was going home but would be back first thing bright and early the next morning.

I drove home in a fairly numb state, reached up to the visor of the car to hit the garage door opener, and as the door was closing behind me, I shut the car off and sat there a minute in the dark garage, thinking about all that had happened that day.

Because of the clear CAT scan and because Dr. McKee had seen people go through Todd’s Paralysis before and then come out of it, I wasn’t terribly worried. Concerned, yes.

But when I pulled on my plaid nightgown and slid between our soft red and black buffalo plaid flannel sheets, I went to sleep hopeful for what the next day, Tuesday, would bring.

Yesterday at CBS our Teaching Director Laurel gave an excellent lecture after our core group discussions. We’re spending thirty weeks in the book of Isaiah this year, and it’s a challenging and beautiful study. As Laurel was bringing her teaching time to a close, she shared something about Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) I’d never heard before.

Above is a familiar work of his for your listening pleasure while you read. 🙂

Apparently when Bach began work on a composition, he wrote the letters “J.J.” at the top of the page before he started recording all the musical notations. These letters stand for “Jesu juva,” which is Latin for “Jesus help me.”

See the example below, in the upper left corner?

When Bach finished a piece, he wrote “S. D. G.” at the end, which is “Soli Deo gloria” and means “Only God Gets the Glory” or “To God Alone be the Glory.”

Laurel encouraged us (a varied group of women ranging in age from the 20s to the 80s) to practice something similar. What if each morning before we got out of bed we breathed the prayer, “Jesus, help me”? (I say this very prayer so often it has become almost like my heartbeat.)

And before we drop off to sleep each night, what if we were to turn our hearts and minds to Him and whisper a variant of Bach’s declaration, something like “I want to glorify you, Lord Jesus”? And if anything praiseworthy happened in our lives on that day, we could say honestly to Him, “You alone get the glory for that, Lord.”

Simple, yes. But profound enough to make my heart yearn and the tears stream at Community Bible Study yesterday.

I realize that when it snows I mention it and when it’s bitterly cold I mention it and when the trees are ablaze I mention it and when it’s too hot and humid for my delicate constitution I mention it, but I reside in Northeastern Minnesota and life can be dominated by the seasons here. I’ve said before that growing up in Southern California made me completely weather oblivious, and then I moved here in 1981 and I’ve been obsessed with paid attention to the weather ever since.

I looked at the thermometer on the front deck when I got up this morning, and it read a solid -20°.  After Edith and Millie had their respectively slowly-sampled and frantically-inhaled breakfasts, I let them outside to go potty and then moved to the living room so I could keep an eye on them from the window that looks out onto the side yard. Within 45 seconds, Millie was stuck from the intense cold, crouching and vibrating and unable to move, and lifting one paw in pain. I was in slippers and nightgown and knew I didn’t have time to run and get dressed so I could dash out into the snow and cold to rescue her. (Note: the word “dash” is quite optimistic and perhaps even humorous in describing any movement I might make these days, no matter how desperate the need.) I felt a bit of panic as I quickly unlocked the living room window and raised it a couple of inches, bent down and yelled outside in the dark, “Millie come! Come on, come inside!” and clapped my hands over and over. She heard me and started moving, but it was alarming to see. She was hunched over and pitifully hobbling on three paws, moving at a snail’s pace, and I could see it was everything she could do to climb the deck stairs and get into the house. I almost cried in relief. Edith mounted the steps right after Millie, but she didn’t look quite as impaired by the cold. They both trotted around the house for a few minutes and then curled up for their morning naps. A few hours later the temperature had risen a full twenty degrees, to a balmy 1°, and when the dogs had to go out again, they were able to take care of business and return inside without incident. I keep telling Sara we have such high-maintenance little hounds, and they’re so emotionally costly!

As I was doing my CBS lesson this morning, pondering Isaiah chapter 41, I glanced up and looked again at the beautiful little stained glass window of a cardinal I have in my room. My friend Penelope Wilcock’s daughter Alice made it for me over four years ago, and I have gotten so much enjoyment from it. I had originally intended to hang it from a window with chains and solid fasteners, but we use all our windows and I’ve never been able to decide on where to put it. So instead I have it sitting in a sturdy stand on top of one of my dressers:

The back of the stand sort of obscures some of the details of the window, but you can still appreciate its beauty, I hope. Click the photo twice to enlarge if you like. Isn’t it exquisitely done? I love it.

I’m rereading portions of a book I picked up soon after Michael died. It’s called The Undistracted Widow by Carol W. Cornish and has been very helpful and inspiring. In the chapter I read today she quotes a Charles Wesley hymn I’d never heard before, “Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose” and the lyrics touched my heart:

1. Thou hidden source of calm repose,
thou all-sufficient love divine,
my help and refuge from my foes,
secure I am if thou art mine;
and lo! from sin and grief and shame
I hide me, Jesus, in thy name.

2. Thy mighty name salvation is,
and keeps my happy soul above,
comfort it brings, and power and peace,
and joy and everlasting love;
to me with thy dear name are given
pardon and holiness and heaven.

3. Jesus, my all in all thou art,
my rest in toil, my ease in pain,
the healing of my broken heart,
in war my peace, in loss my gain,
my smile beneath the tyrant’s frown,
in shame my glory and my crown.

4. In want my plentiful supply,
in weakness my almighty power,
in bonds my perfect liberty,
my light in Satan’s darkest hour,
in grief my joy unspeakable,
my life in death, my heaven in hell.

Have you heard or sung this before? Such rich lyrics, and so wonderful to thrill to something written almost three hundred years ago!

Along with the three or four books I’m reading right now, I picked up C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian today. Last month I decided to read through The Chronicles of Narnia again, soaking them in during these cold months that keep me inside more. Since December I’ve read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Magician’s Nephew, and The Horse and His Boy, all new and fresh in different ways even though dear old friends. I always manage to sob in different parts of each book. In Lion, I cry when I read almost anything about Lucy Pevensie and her interactions with Aslan. In fact, many years ago I told the Lord I wanted to be more like Lucy Pevensie. She is in awe of Aslan, yet loves Him so deeply she buries her face in His mane, and trusts Him completely when He tells her to climb on his back and hold on before they fly.

I started occasionally writing down the fictional characters and real-life people I am so inspired by and would love to be more like. In the back of one of my journals I started my list, which isn’t terribly long, and here are a few of the names:

-Lucy Pevensie (from C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books)
-Matthew Cuthbert (from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables)
–Betsie ten Boom (a real Dutch person written about in the book The Hiding Place)
-Matty Jenkyns (a fictional character played by Judi Dench in the British DVD series Cranford)
–Anna, the prophetess in Luke, chapter 2, who was a widow so focused on meeting Jesus she did practically nothing else but fast and pray and watch for Him.

There are other names on my “wish” list too. Mostly I think they all remind me of the traits I long to have…gentleness, mercy, humility, devotion, such inner strength from utter dependence on God, and more. I am not much like any of them, yet as long as there’s life, there’s hope. In some way, all of the people on my list are Christlike to me.

Can you think of anyone you might put on a similar list of your own?

Well, it’s getting close to the time when I need to start thinking about what to make for dinner. If I had my druthers, I’d serve Qdoba burritos with pico de gallo, cilantro lime rice, black beans and homemade guacamole, but the likelihood of me going out in this cold is close to nil. I might whip up some omelets instead, butter some whole grain toast, slice some Honeycrisp apples, and then read a chapter or two of Prince Caspian while I wait for Downton Abbey to come on.

Have a wonderful week, dear friends and family…I’m thankful to know you stop by here.

My granddaughter Mrs. Nisky made her daddy a special present for Christmas, because he has read The Lord of the Rings over fifteen times. I guess that makes him a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Here’s how her project turned out:

She walked to Grandma’s house after school several times in the last three months, and worked on it little by little. When everything was finally modeled and baked, she glued it together and gently put it in a box for wrapping. It even has Gandalf’s secret mark on it.

Isn’t it fantastic?

Have you read Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis? I read it again last year and still remember the little blazes of light that came to my understanding as I read. I highly recommend it! Here’s a wonderful quote from the book:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen (college), night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him of whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”   

— C.S. Lewis, in Surprised by Joy

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Sara and I drove to the cemetery recently but right before we left she decided she wanted to make a heart-shaped wreath to drape over Michael’s headstone. The personalized wreath she made for Christmas is still there on its stand, looking beautiful in the snow, but this one is simpler.

She also decided she wanted long red ribbons attached to the wreath, so they would blow in the wind and look pretty and unique from a distance. Here’s a photo of Sara hanging the wreath. It’s on the other side of the headstone and you can only see the ribbons to the right.

As we drove away, the wind was briskly blowing and when we got to the bottom of the hill and looked back up toward Michael’s grave, you could see the ribbons billowing and streaming as if to say, “Look! Here he is!”

We laughed about how incongruous the ribbons are for Michael, a humble man who didn’t want to call attention to himself and was much too manly for a beribboned grave.

And we also know that actually, he isn’t there. Only what’s left of his earthly tent remains, and that isn’t needed anymore. He has a new body, a new smile, a new voice, new legs to run and leap, new arms to raise in praise to Jesus, and joy of joys, his new body will never die again. I firmly believe he will still be recognizable as our Michael, but he’ll be the most beautiful and vigorous he’s ever been, and I look forward to the day when I can lay eyes on him again.

“But [we are different, because] our citizenship is in heaven. And from there we eagerly await [the coming of] the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to Himself, will [not only] transform [but completely refashion] our earthly bodies so that they will be like His glorious resurrected body.”   Philippians 3:20-21, Amplified Version

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Last night I took my two Fosters out to dinner and we used an Olive Garden gift card I had received for Christmas. The gals had Chicken Alfredo and Lasagna, and I had the Chicken Marsala. By the time we got home and put our leftovers in the fridge, let the dogs out and turned on a fire in the dining room fireplace, it had begun to snow outside. I stood and watched from the kitchen window, looking toward the streetlight across the street and down aways, and was happy to see big, fluffy flakes blowing around. It snowed about an inch or two, but it’s a light, powdery snow, easy to shovel, and right before I went to bed around 10:00 p.m., I let the dogs out one more time (such high-maintenance pooches — always wanting to potty outside!) and then shoveled off the deck in a couple of minutes.

When I can be outside on a winter night in my flannel nightgown and slippers, with no coat, hat or socks, and it feels brisk and refreshing, then I know it’s at least 26 degrees out. My internal thermometer tells me so. When it’s below 20 degrees, I feel the chill seep deep in less than a minute and don’t watch and wait for the dogs on the deck but from inside the house. If the temperatures are close to zero or even below it (as is predicted for this Sunday — 10 below — gahhh) I might go outside to hurry the dogs down the deck steps so they won’t lollygag and end up with painful feet, but the bitter cold brings aching pain in seconds and I can’t get back inside fast enough.

I’m a homebody anyway, but there’s nothing like a northeastern Minnesota winter to underscore that tendency. Since Michael died on February 9th, I have cocooned myself as much as possible in this home I’m so grateful for, to heal, to ponder, to insulate, to cry, possibly even to prepare. I’m not sure what I’m preparing for, but I feel like there’s something. Maybe a trip abroad? Maybe the writing of a children’s book? Maybe my own death? We never know how long we’ll have, and I think when you lose a loved one, mortality stops being a hunched, shadowy figure darting from bush to bush in your peripheral vision, and instead walks up those front steps, rings the doorbell and offers its hand in a bold hello. And it’s not scary.

Two things make death not scary for me: Michael’s death, and Jesus. The ways the Lord beautifully tended to our family, and to His beloved Michael, during the final week of Michael’s life, forever changed how I think about the process of dying. I do realize that not everyone gets to experience what Michael did, but I hope I learned a deeper level of trust in the Lord for when my own time comes. And pretty much the whole Bible points to how God dealt with the problem of death (and in Genesis it became a huge problem right away) and His answer was, by the time the New Testament was penned, Jesus. Writing this makes me think of Fernando Ortega’s song “Give Me Jesus,” especially the lyrics, “and when I come to die, give me Jesus.” If you haven’t heard it, you’ll be blessed to listen, right here. I asked my friend Lorna to sing this song at Michael’s funeral.

I’m reading a book right now I think I can safely recommend, even though I’m only in the second chapter. One of my eleven readers, Nancy, mentioned it in a recent comment she left. It’s called Evidence Not Seen by Darlene Deibler Rose, and it’s already stirring my soul.

I want my soul to be stirred, yet this past year I have done all I can to hole myself up so my soul is not stirred. Maybe that’s not the most accurate way to put it. Maybe I want my soul to be stirred, but my life to stand still for a while, which of course is foolish. I need to start moving again. My grief and inactivity have added pounds to my already ample frame, and my joints never let me forget it. This thought came to me the other day: I buried my husband and am now trying to bury myself as well. Not literally bury in a grave, but am I trying to wrap and hide myself from all that life still offers? If so, why? I have no idea. If I knew the answer to that I probably wouldn’t have written the last paragraph.

The sun hasn’t come up yet, but I have a hot bath drawn (with my favorite mild bubbles from a splash of Amway’s LOC) and several things on my to-do list today. Grocery shopping, foster report writing and mailing, laundry folding, my Community Bible Study lesson, prescriptions to pick up for my gals, and if I can reach to the depths for a shred of self-control and discipline, a walk.

What do you have planned for today? Or tomorrow? What are you reading right now? Are you preparing for something too?