Day and Night

I have had an incredible experience this last week.

I got to watch a man die.

It was a very sad and terrible thing, don't get me wrong, but if you have to do something like this, to get the opportunity to be a part of this was nothing short of inspiring.

Randy was my brother-in-law. He had lived in a group home for almost forty of his fifty-one years. He was diagnosed as a mosaic Downes, a unique chromosome pattern that turns normally docile Downes patients into a different, unpredictable individual.

By many beliefs, it was a tragic life. People would look at his situation and just shake their heads and then avert their eyes. But they didn't know. They didn't have an opportunity to look at this life close up.

Randy had a great life. He lived in a group home and had a room he shared with another resident for decades. He had a big screen TV, his own special recliner, bongos. He went to work making something with his hands that I am sure, somewhere in our house, we have at least one of. On days when his sister would come and see him, he would wear a tie, not necessarily a tie that matched the shirt, except maybe in Italy or parts of Uzbekistan, and it wasn't necessarily tied, but he got dressed up for her. She was never disappointed.

With all his health issues, he wasn't suppose to live this long, but he did.

He choked on a peanut butter sandwich.

Really? A peanut butter sandwich?

The staff worked so hard trying to save their friend, but the sandwich was so far down that only the paramedics could extract it. He had gone too long without air.

But then the magic began to show. The world doesn't expect to see people like Randy making a difference in the world. That's why the world created the group home. Make them comfortable is the official version and we do. We try to give them a life that is normal whatever that means. Then God steps in and makes it perfect.

This guy, impacted lives like I wish I did. In my life, I hope I have people who love me so unconditionally like this man had standing by his bed. The rules in cases like this are to wait 72 hours to see if his condition changed, righted itself, or ended. At the end of that time, the doctors gathered us together and the decision was made to let nature take its course.

He lasted another twenty four hours.

In that entire time, this man had a standing vigil by his bed. The group home workers took turns with Randy round the clock, sitting by his bed, talking to him, touching his arm, rubbing his legs, washing his hair, shaving him, trimming his toe nails. I could have done all of those things-if I had too. Here's the thing, they didn't have to-they wanted to. It shamed me.

They loved him. He changed their lives. He loved them back-purely; in a way that took away all the crap the rest of us deal with and use. This was his family. Even the residents, who had some knowledge of a change in things, wanted to come to the hospital and were granted and escorted by the care workers. I met them all, shook their hands, received their hugs. Yep, I was shamed.

I want to love like that.

I can-I have, but it is never consistent. I want to be like these people. I want to love so purely that conditions or issues are never even questioned, there is just love.

There is a letter, written a long time ago, that talks about faith and revealing things. It talks about the revelation of love, not to the wise, but to the children. Randy couldn't drive, have a family, do his own taxes, or fly a plane, well, maybe he could, but you definitely wouldn't want to be around him when he was doing it. He couldn't do the vast majority of things we all take for granted.

Frankly, none of those things are important. ANYONE can do those things. Randy, was a lover. He gave it and, in the end, he received everything he sowed. He changed lives, healed hearts, motivated the lives around him to be better and to continue to love like they had for so long.

If we find comfort in a spiritual life involving God, then we need to know something about that. Randy doesn't want to come back from where he is now. He has the wisdom of the Universe and as I write these words and as, I am sure he sees them form on the page, he is nodding his head. "You tell them for me they don't understand where I am. Tell them they don't understand-they will, but no way do I want to leave this place! No pain, no suffering, laughter all the time, fresh pie, and purple ponies. Tell them there is pure joy, pure happiness, pure love."

"...and the greatest of these is love."

Now its over-or so we think. I guess that's up to each of us.

Yep, I got to watch a man die-or did he?