Everything was going well, and it happened our healing prayer turned into a prayer of preparation for my dad. It has taken everything within me to write this down today, the Holy Spirit led me to do so in the progression of my own healing and understanding. Yes we mourn as Christians, but with a different understanding-but yes we still mourn. I needed to write down the final moments of when my Dad took his last breath. I had real heavy questions and I ran to God for the real answers, and he led me to the book of Habakkuk. This prophet went to God with difficult question and God answered them, but God came back and told him to write down the answers plainly so that all will see and understand.
As I made my way down the end of the hospital hallway of the fourth floor towards room #448, I prayed for all the others rooms that I passed by with patients who were suffering as well. I was joyful that day thinking we made a turn for the good, Dad was on the road of recovery. However when I entered the room Dad didn’t look like Dad anymore. He was thin, and all life was slowly leaving. I was scared, and felt it was time to go into fight mode. In the back of my mind I wondered where was God? Where was the Holy Spirit ? This was not suppose to happen!! How Could this be? How could God take this man(my Dad) who’s mission on earth was not finished yet!! My mind tried to focus and I tried to regain control but it was hard, my Dad was dieing, I was losing my strong tower, my best friend, my partner in story telling, my inspiration, the person who I could always run to and he would believe in me no matter what. He was my Daddy and I was his only little girl. At the age of 36 I was always his little girl.
We prayed ,”Lord please,give us the direction we should go in prayer” I cried as I stood by Dad’s bed looking at his face. He could not blink his eyes, and he could not talk, his jaw was paralyzed. He could only move his eye brows. I held on to his hand and squeezed, and waited for him to respond, and he did very slowly. I leaned over to rub my face on his hand, and tried to remember his smell and his sent. I reached over to his forehead and kissed his head. Mom looked from a far and teared up as my younger brother just stood by the door. I tried to remind the Lord of all the other miracles he had done, and kept on believing for the impossible.
Suddenly the night nurse came in very alarmed saying it doesn’t look good, we were losing dad, his vital signs was very unstable, other nurses ran into the room, with other machines as they were in code emergency. Mom held on to me crying a cry of lost. We had no more words to pray, we had nothing to say. I begged the Holy Spirit what to pray, and my mouth automatically opened saying,”Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” in obedence of what was happening to us at that very moment. My eldest brother arrived and then some of our church Pastors came by to pray with us, to encourage us and comfort us. We needed conformation, we needed clarity in the storm that was taking place. All of us were drained from standing in the gap for my dad.
That night was hard because the doctors came by to have us sign wavers of what needed to take place if dad needed assistance to keep him alive, It was not good. If he stopped breathing they would have to give him CPR-and his chest would crack open, becuase it was still a freash surgery, with consideration to his ribs, he would be worst off plus other complication he would suffer, not to mention the ones he was already suffering from. All his origins were shutting down. I COULD NOT BELIEVE THIS WAS HAPPENENING. We ALL COULD NOT BELIEVE.
They gave Dad so much medication,I am not sure he was able to understand what was happening. That night we had to prepare,to leave as if Dad could not make it through the night. I cried a hurt cry, it was deep and painful. I walked in to the room leaned over to his ear and said,” Daddy I love you, and don’t worry about me, but if God is calling you home “go Daddy Go fly high above the storm Dad fly. I kissed his fore head and turned my head and walked out. Down the same hallway I entered in the morning praying for others. Thinking they would call me in the night to say Daddy has left, but they didn’t he held on till morning.
I was sick in the morning (depression, withdrawls and deep hurt & pain-all I wanted to do was sleep) and mom called for me to go to the hospital, because we needed to make some decision’s and send Dad off the right way-through Praise and worship at his side. I could not get out of bed, Mom and my brother came to get me, and told me to get ready and meet them there. Finally my husband got me up and said , Dad would want you there, so we got the kids ready and went. It almost felt like it was a bad dream.
At the hospital I was met by one of our pastors, and she stopped me and had a talk with me. I was in a very sad state of mind. She asked me to just talk with her. I said, “if I can tell her how I really felt?” She said yes,and I said, “I feel like the family of Lazarus, like Jesus came to late.” Lazarus was Jesus’ family one of his own. I kind of feel that way becuase of our family history. I really felt like we were the Lord’s family? (everyone should feel this way) We are favored! We were raised as worshipers, we were trained to lead people and children into the presence of God. Every where we went we would be leaders concering worship and obedennt servants. We served in ministry all of our lives and Dad was the head of it all, Dad and mom trained us and we were faithful in all that we did concerning the Lord. I felt forgotten, I felt lost, I just wanted to run and hide in a cave but then I was reminded in the word “Jesus wept” too. I could feel at that moment Jesus was holding me. The Pastor hugged me and she sent me to my Dad’s room, to help prepare my Dad’s passing into thy father’s hands. ”Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done”
John 11:32 Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
John 11:33 Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
John 11:34 And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”
John 11:35 Jesus wept.
Dad was hanging on a tread, when I got to the room, My husband and my mother, my two brothers and my sister in-law was there and it came to be he was being kept alive by strong medication, and he aparently had another stroke, we were told it would probably be about half an hour to forty five minutes for him to go and we could let him go without any pain. The family felt it was best to let Daddy go home to be with God. We had all the grandchildren come in to see their papa. We had a stool so they could stand on and kiss their papa and say their goodbyes. Tears flooded all their faces, and it welled up in bright red as they felt the lost of their papa’s soul -his smile, his touch that was leaving us. From the oldest to the youngest they new it was serious. They all wept, the sound of children weeping ingulfed the room as it called the prescence of the Holy Spirit, it was hot, and it was special, it was a deep sensation of pain. We agreed in releasing Dad in a room full of worship, so we began to do just that. My husband and my eldest son began to play the guitar, taking turns as we all began to sing.
The nurses came into the room to unhook my Dad’s iv lines and other things that was keeping him alive. He began to breathe on his own. Nurses came in and they cried as they stood in awe of us worshiping my Dad into the thrown room of heaven’s gates. We cried as we worshiped. One hour passed, then another hour passed, and then another hour, we worshiped for more then four hours. Then we sat in silence and began to talk of my Dad of all the good times we had with him, and we even began to laugh because he was a joker, and we noticed the more we laughed, and talked about the good times his vitals went down, and he was on his way to heaven. Then we stopped, and it was silent again. Mom held on to Daddy’s head, as we his children stood at his bed side all around the bed. We started to talk again and reminisce of Dad while growing up and Dad’s vitals went really low this time, we continued, and then it happened. Dad took his last breath, it was finished. My eldest brother said all he could see in the room was the color purple. Mom held tight to Dad’s head, as she stood on the stool, touching his face, and even wiping his tears that came from his eyes. She fixed his hair and kissed his lips, and cheek. No one said a word.
We felt such a silence, heaven was there. The room was hot, and all I could do was cry, I could hardly breathe, I looked around the room and seen the rest of my family, the same way as I. I looked out the window and the sun was going down and it was something I never experienced before. I later realized we had a touch of Christ the touch of Jesus himself. I thought it was heaven but it was not it was Jesus’Heart. My heart was so broken I could not even stand. I felt Jesus’ heart, how he felt for all of the lost souls that still needed to hear the news-the goodnews of the Gospel. Then I felt a strange kind of Joy that Dad was where we all wanted to be, and that was in heaven. We all hovered over Dad in a huddle kind of way and took a breathe together to release our cares in Gods hands. Mom grabbed the white sheet and laid it over my Dad’s body, and we began to take off the pictures of our family off the wall, and began to take off the many scriptures mom placed on the wall as well. We gathered all our stuff and said our goodbyes and walked out the door together, not leaving Dad behind, but to follow him up a head.
Room #448 was the room where I seen my Dad fight for thrity days. A strong man who was not going to give up unless the Lord stepped in to claim him home, in which he did.
August 9, 2008 is considered to us a day of graduation. At 7:40 p.m. Clyde R. Vegas was kissed by the presence of God and departed from us on a new journey into the gates of heaven. Preparing the way for the rest of his family members who witnessed this awesome miracle take place, conquering death into the fathers hands of a resurrected life.
I don’t have all my question answered but, as I wait on God he is giving me more understanding of this season in my life. I am processing everything in a way of needing to have full understanding of the WORD TO SHARE WITH OTHERS someday. The flesh is weak but the spirit is strong. I need to be transparent, I need to be me. If Christ wept, I too will weep.
