Melissa's Holy Week

On Saturday, we saw the first signs of a problem. Didn’t know it was a problem. She had received an injection in the back of her arm that morning. Later that evening, it started bleeding and it took a while to get it stopped. Not a huge amount of blood, but a steady flow from a pin-prick hole. I thought, “Well, her platelets must be really low.” Got it stopped, no more problem. She went to the clinic for her usual visit Sunday. We knew her liver numbers weren’t great. But when she got there, they were worse and with the bleeding, they admitted her.

Apparently, your liver has a huge role to play in clotting, and even if your platelets are good, if the liver is not helping, you’re in trouble. I stayed with her Sunday night. We watched The Big Lebowski on tv. We saw it for the first time Friday night, and were laughing that it was on again.

She was weak Monday morning. I went on to the church. Came back, got the boys settled, returned to the hospital about 7:30 or so. Connie (Sissy’s mom) told me she was not so good. And she wasn’t. But, I thought, she’ll get past it. She always did. I had seen her weaker. She had liver problems right after the transplant. She did not look as bad as then. Her eyes were a little yellow, but not bad.

Through the night, she’d get up and I’d help her to the bathroom. She was still getting up, still strong enough to get up and walk. We didn’t talk much—I was tired, she was, too, and I had no clue how things were.

Her levels of different things were spiking up and they tried to get them down. Some of the clotting numbers were improving. Then at 5 a.m. or so, she started bleeding massively—her heart rate went sky high, blood pressure dropped. The crash team came in and after about 40 minutes got things under control, but Sissy was never really responsive much after that. You could call to her, and she’d look at you. I told her I loved her. Melissa’s parents came in as soon as her nurse told me she was doing bad, and they needed to be called. We had to make decisions—she might need to be on a ventilator.

We knew from long before she ever got sick she didn’t want that. And thru this all she told me that if it got to the point where she was fading, let her go. She stabilized. Dr. Geoff Herzig won’t give up, and he felt like if she could get her past this, the liver would regenerate and we’d be back where we were, a positive place where she was doing good in recovery. But by noon, it was clear that was not working. We could give her blood, blood products, clotting drugs and all it would do was work a little. The liver just didn’t have anything else in it. Her kidneys did not seem to be functioning.

So I had to say things I never thought I would. I broke my own heart and said, let’s let her go.

I left about an hour after that to go get the boys. To tell them something. To take them to be with my parents and brother who had come in. I knew that Sissy might not last until I got back. But I also knew she would want the boys taken care of. I knew her love for them is what would send me. My goodness, what love she gave to us, that even in the most desperate moment in my life, when all I wanted to do was stay with her, to watch her, to touch her, to speak to her, I knew I could leave because she loved those boys. And there has never been anything left unsaid between us. There was nothing more to say to her that she had not know long before she ever got sick.

My brother drove me to the house. Got clothes for the boys, got them from school. I told them that Mommy was really sick, that her liver was not working, and when that happens, people don’t live. John fell into me and Joseph jumped around like he head not heard and then snuggled with Nathan. As I had been told, they would hear it and then move on, trying to deny it. We sat around loving on them, then took them to Dairy Queen. Dropped them off at the hotel with my parents. The boys were so glad to see them. It was a great distraction, a great aid for them to be with family, where the grief would not be so open and raw all the time.

My dad drove me to the hospital. When I came onto the unit, one of the nurses, Shellie, came and got me and rushed me back. I stepped into the door way and Sissy stopped breathing. Y’all, she waited for me to come back. She knew I had that darn squeaky left shoe. Could hear it coming down whatever hall I walked. I prayed over her. And then there was so much crying. My dad held me like he has never had to in probably 30 years. “I wish I didn’t love her so much.” He said, “no greater love…” a reference to his favorite verse. Jesus laid down his life that we might live.

But now let me tell you about what I am calling “Melissa’s Holy Week.”

I think she knew something was up. I am not sure she knew she would die. But I think she knew that she might have something going on she would not recover from. So it was time to hang out. Monday, she had the best day ever, as she said. We left the clinic, ate at Skyline, got the boys. She did not want to go home and sit or sleep. So we all went back to town, dropped off her handicapped parking permit, went and got some periwinkles. We came back and planted them, me and the boys, while she sat in the garage and watched. We had a picnic outside. Maybe that day she really did feel good. She wanted to hang out with us. Periwinkles—a chemo drug Melissa took is made from African perwinkles. They are my favorite annual flower, I guess. And now, like all things, they are freighted with memory.

Tuesday, she hung out with her mom. Wednesday I think, she drove around with her dad, more energy, doing more things. I think she knew she had to soak up some time.

Friday was the last good day. I took her home from the clinic, we got the boys, planted what was left to plant while she sat in the garage. There was nothing but patience with the boys, where I was a little impatient. Then she wanted to watch the boys ride their bikes at the school down the road, something she had not done yet. She was really quiet as she watched them, and me. I should have known.

We had another picnic. She told me, “I am glad you like to be outside.” She knows this is important to the boys. I think she was telling me, as she had in a million other ways, even literally, “You’re a good Daddy, and thank you.” Dummy me, I said, “When you get better, maybe we can adopt some kids,” because all we wanted was a lot of kids. Connie bought her some new clothes, and we see now that Melissa looked at her with a look that said, “Why buy these now?”

What a good week it was. She spent her time with us. She didn’t say how she was feeling. A mother and a wife to the end—her love for us spent time with us. She took care of us to the end.

I married Melissa because: we were good friends; she was the most beautiful woman; she was funny; she accepted me for who I was; when we held each other, all was right in the world; I knew she would be a good mother; she loved Jesus; I knew she would stand beside me.

Melissa and I were submitted to each other before we knew of the biblical doctrine of submission, that each would seek the other’s good before his/her own.

She was never more beautiful than when she had her babies. She loved them more than anyone could. They know it, and it’s our task that they remember it. That’s what she told her mom when she came out of the hospital in June after the transplant. “If I don’t make it through this, you have to tell them how much I loved them, how hard I fought for them.” Do this in remembrance of me.

I am as heartbroken and beat down as I have ever been. But I have peace. I can’t explain this power of Jesus. It’s not only that I know her faith, her trust, and how it grew these two years. She is a model of grace under pressure, of the power of faith in Christ in times when it’s easiest to give up, to ask where is this God everyone keeps talking about. My peace also comes from knowing that if her love sustains me now, to the point I could go to the boys, not knowing if she would die before I returned, how much will Christ’s love sustain us?

Y’all, I am beat down. Crushed. There are no words for my grief. But there are no words for my peace. He lives. She lives in Him. John and Joe have kept saying that they know she is with Jesus and one day they will see her again. “Jesus has better food even than Mammaw.” But Melissa might beg to differ.

During the day, I read her favorite Scriptures to her. Revelation 5, esp 5:8. Matthew 11:28-30. Psalm 62. Then some others. John 12, the seed that dies to produce fruit. 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection and the resurrection body. Philippians 1, because she says she wins either way—she got that from Ann Orr, when Ann was dying of cancer.

Remember us, especially my boys. It’s a long road. One that will need light on the path. I’ll need wisdom and discernment to discover how I live now, how I continue in my calling. There was a time in the desperate days before and right after transplant when I said, “Maybe I should quit and take a regular job where the time demands are not as great or at least not as demanding in times when you could spend it wit you or the boys?” Or when we talked about what might happen if she died: “Do I quit for a while, find a regular job, something where I can take care of the boys in the best way?” She had a quick answer, “You wouldn’t be happy doing that.” She always supported me in everything. Always will.

Let me tell you one of those stories you hear, a strange moment. I was coming back from my parents’ hotel, going back to Waddy to be with my in-laws, make arrangements, etc. I turned on our (the four of us) favorite tape, Jars of Clay’s Redemption Songs. I like, “God Will Lift Up Your Head.” John likes “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.” Joe’s favorite is “It is Well With My Soul.” Sissy’s favorite is “I’ll Fly Away.” I turned it on in the car. I said, “Sissy, I am playing your song.” Then I did what I too often do: start talking too much, analyzing, thinking out loud. Do they hear what’s going on down here? Do they care up in heaven about this miserable place? I was wondering, “What would Aquinas or Chrysostom say?” Then I heard clear as day, “Be quiet and let me listen!” How many times has she said that? I’m a ranter and raver, a think-out-louder, and so many times she would just ask me to be quiet for a spell. Or, one night when she could not sleep she said, “Tell me about Pol Pot” (because I know just about everything there is to know about Pol Pot…) and she went out.

I looked over in the passenger seat, a seat she sat in all the time, we would hold hands all the time. And it was empty. But my heart is full of love for her and her love for me. Folks, it’s like I get a clearer picture of the gospel: the disciples (loved ones) don’t quite get it, that the end is coming. Jesus spends some real time with them, even tho He always had anyway. Some last words, some powerful love. He dies. Then we go about keeping the memory alive. Keeping the love and the power of the love alive.

One day, things will recede. I won’t be constantly heartbroken. The devotion to her memory will not be as fierce. But it will be there, I pray, a constant source of strength. She loved me, the boys, her family, like no one else. I floated around constantly, did whatever, had confidence in all things because I knew simply that at the end of the day, no matter what, I could go home to love.

I suppose I will say a lot more. It’s how I process things, I guess. And more: I want you to know her.