The Vacant House

(This message was never completed when I first wrote it shortly after Phil left for heaven. As we are revamping our website, I have taken the time to finish it now. Although it is from the early stages of my grief, I think it still has a powerful message that someone may need to hear. I hope you don’t mind if I share it with you at last.)

The Vacant House

The vacant house sits there still and quiet. The heat is gone because there is no
one inside to turn it on. The lights are shut off, no need to even have
the electricity flowing through the walls. The garage is empty of any
vehicles that once parked there. The yard is cold and barren, no signs of
life except for old plants and trees that wither from lack of water.
This house was once a home, filled with life. Filled with smiles and
laughter, even some tears. Filled with love. Memories were made there.
Life was celebrated within those walls. Heat circulated and lights
glowed from the windows. Perhaps a fireplace filled the home with warmth
while food was enjoyed around the kitchen table. All things of the past
now. The family that once lived there may drive by from time to time,
stop and take a look at the place they remember as a home but is no more.

Does this sound like the start of a very sad story? Maybe it is, maybe
it isn't. Maybe it's just a story to illustrate life. Our lives, the
life of our son.

His "house" is vacant now. The lights are shut off, the
heat is gone from its interior. There will be no more smiles or laughter
or even tears from his original earthly house. His eyes, which once glowed,
glow no more. His fireplace, or maybe I should say his heart, no longer fills his body
with warmth from its beating. He no longer enjoys the foods he once did,
or takes part in the activities that created the memories we cherish still.
How are we to understand that where he once lived, he lives no more?
It can be simple. It is simply stated in the Bible.

2 Corinthians 5:8
We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be
away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Do we understand that promise? I think it's very important that we do, that I do. Being away from this earthly body means we will be with the Lord if we have put our faith in Him.

Our son does not lie in some cold grave, in a casket that we purchased for him in November. He does not lie with his head on a silken pillow, in complete darkness, waiting to be set free. He is free! His old "house" may be six feet under, but he is not!

He is not cold, and he is not buried. He is at home with the Lord.

Where he once "lived" is vacant now. I don't want this to be a sad story, but a story that illustrates a very important message--one of life everlasting. One that will set our minds free of the thoughts we might have as we visit a loved one’s grave. I know those thoughts. They are gripping and upsetting and unbearable when we think the one we love lies under that grass, under that marker, in the clothes we remember choosing for them, in the body we remember loving. That’s much too painful.  They are NOT there! That is simply the "house" that they lived in at one time. We can drive by from time to time, and say hello. Stop for a chat, remember good times, maybe even bad, but also remember that they live elsewhere now.

We may have a hard time realizing this because all we know is this earth and these bodies. All we know about the person we love is that they were here with us, in bodily form, and now that form lies buried. We can picture their face, their build, their clothes, their hair, and we think that is them, because that is what we know. But let’s also remember we know the inside of them, their spirit, the one that God knows and the one that God called to His heavenly home. Their soul and their spirit are totally different than their body. This body decays and will continue to do so until Christ comes again to give us a new body. He will you know! It says so in the Bible! But until that time, our loved ones are away from us, already in the presence of Christ.

The following may be difficult to read because it goes where few want to go, but I want to share it with you because I think it is so important that you understand the message here.

If you skip it, I will understand.

If you read it, I hope you will understand the difficulty I have in sharing it, but my reasons for doing so...

The night that Phil died, as most of you know, we were with him. He was in his own bed, and speaking to us right up until his last minutes on this earth. The last thing he said before he left this earth was "I love you". After that, he slowly left us.

I thought it would be like in the movies, a person sighs, they breathe their last breath, and then they shut their eyes and they are gone. Maybe with some, that is how it is, but not with Phil. He had what seemed to be small seizures; at least that is what it looked like. It did not seem like a painful experience for him, but more of an electrical shutdown of his systems. I continued to talk to him, telling him what a good job he had done, and to go to God; on and on I talked for almost 20 minutes. Looking back, it seems like maybe a minute or so.

I remember thinking somewhere along the way that if he was not really dying, he will never be the same again. I thought about brain damage being done because of his erratic movements. But please remember, it did not appear painful. As one minute turned into another, he began to breathe slower and slower and his movements slowed down and his heartbeat got slower. All of which had been quite fast in the beginning. They slowed, to the point of finally stopping. His eyes were shut, and he was quiet at last.

It’s hard to describe the emotion I immediately felt because it seems so unnatural looking back. Shouldn’t I have been completely devastated? Shouldn’t I have been weeping over his body? You would think so, but I think I took in a deep breath, breathed out a loud sigh and said something like, "whoa, that was cool". I was amazed at witnessing his departure from his "house". It wasn’t scary, it wasn’t horrible, it was like watching a baby being born into this world only I watched my son being born into heaven. Don’t get me wrong, I soon was weeping and sobbing and I was completely devastated, there’s no denying that, but my immediate reaction, I believe, came straight from God as the angels in heaven rejoiced at his arrival!

I have seen dead people on TV, acting the part, and I have seen dead people at funerals with an open casket, but I have never seen anyone depart this earth. When they do...it is an amazing event when you know where they are going, and it is an eye-opening experience to see how much of who we are is not what we see on the outside at all. Phil was SO gone at that moment of departure; I cannot begin to tell you in words. My son was no longer with us, and that was VERY evident. What was left behind was a lot of what we had known of him, but the very best part of him was gone. Even his dog knew that as she jumped up on his bed to lick his face. She stopped a few inches from him and turned and left, not licking him at all. He was not there, and she knew it.

I remember Jim asking if we should call Hospice to let them know. I told him not yet, I needed some time, and we had it as we gathered around his bed and told stories, and laughed and cried and I held his hand and kissed him and wept over him, and experienced those first moments without him in a very special and sad and wonderful way. I remember touching his hair thinking, your hair hasn’t changed. It is the only thing that is the same about you, because your hair was already dead. These are strange thoughts that I am sharing, but honest ones.

After a period of time, maybe an hour or more, we called Hospice and they pronounced Phil, and then we called the Mortuary to come. I could not imagine how I would ever, ever let them pick up my child and take him away from me, from our home, how would I ever be able to stand it, but once again, God reminded me that he was no longer there. The lights were off, the heat was shut down, the fireplace no longer burned, Phil had "moved".

The men came and put Phil on a gurney, and brought him out to the front hallway. I remember thinking, why is his face not covered; don’t they always cover the face of people who have died? I walked over to him and gave him a kiss and said good-bye to him. It so wasn’t Phil...there was almost no resemblance of the child I knew except some familiar features that hadn’t changed. His "house" was empty.

The young man then asked me if they could cover his face, and I thought, oh now, so that’s how they do it. Then they wheeled him out of our front door, down the front step as I followed closely behind, and they put him gently into a white van in our driveway. It was three o’clock in the morning and it was foggy and cold. The first night I had noticed fog, but then I’d never been out on our front porch at that hour of the night. I remember being so grateful that it was the middle of the night so the neighborhood children did not have to witness this event. As the van drove off I remember thinking, this is not as hard as I thought it would be.

Now, you may think I am the most heartless mother that ever walked the face of this earth, but I assure you, I am not. I love my son as much as any mother could love a child, but my child was not in that van. My child was not in that light blue coffin we purchased, and my child is not lying 6 feet under the cold earth. He lives in heaven. I was simply viewing the "place" that he used to live.

One of the best things I remember though was when I went back into his room while we were waiting for this all to transpire. I went back in from time to time to touch him and to be with him, and as I leaned over his face, I saw a smile. A small smile of satisfaction was on his lips. After all that "seizure" activity that had contorted his mouth into many different positions, what was left was a smile. I think that was a gift from Phil and from God, saying "I’m fine, I’m happy, and I’m done". Sometimes it is the little things that bring the greatest comfort.

As I go on and on here, sharing with you about the most intimate moments of Phil’s life/death, I only want to have you come away with one very important fact from all of this rambling. Phil, my son, is not on this earth any longer. He departed that night for his heavenly home as we watched and coached and encouraged him to go. When I visit his grave, I pray it will be only to pay my respects to the old house that he once lived in. It is not him! I will remember the good times he had in his earthly body, and the not so good times. I will remember when the lights were on and the heater was running in his earthly tent. I will remember when I trimmed the hedges (hair) of his "house."

When I visit his grave and when I miss him with all my heart, I pray I will not mourn over his discomfort, but rejoice over his new life in his new home in heaven where he is in perfect peace. I pray that God will always, always help me to remember that until the day we are reunited once again.

Let’s not let the devil lie to us and make us think that our loved ones are in any way suffering, because they are not. God has a much better plan than that for those that He calls His own—our heavenly home is the greatest place to be, and that is where believers are fully alive when they leave this earth until we see them again!

When asked this difficult question, I now have an answer...
How many children do you have?
Three! I will always have three boys.
One lives in Oregon,
One lives in California,
One lives in Heaven!