The Mingling of Life and Death: The Day My Daddy Went to Heaven

My dad and I shortly before His Heaven birthday

I rarely write or talk about the day my dad died. I try not to even think about it very much. There is a song, though, that plays on the radio every once in a while...and reminds me of that day.


I have not yet had the experience of birthing a child. I can only imagine that it is an incredibly spiritual experience...to take part in bringing life into the world, what a privilege! Even so, the pain cannot be bypassed.

The day my Daddy died, I thought of the painful process of childbirth. Just as a baby slowly lets go of his home in the womb, my Dad was slowly letting go of his home on earth. It was painful. It was heartbreaking. But the presence of God in that room was almost tangible. My Dad spent a lifetime walking with Jesus and praying, "Be still, my soul...He is." For the first time, as he was painfully birthed into the realm of Heaven, he was face to face with the One who was, is, and is to come. His soul was quiet.

As I sat by his side that day, reading aloud scriptures from Revelation describing the new creation, tears trickled down his cheeks. He had been unconscious for many hours by that time, unresponsive to our voices whispering "I love yous" in his ear. I don't know if those tears were merely another sign of failed control over bodily functions, or were truly in response to what I was reading. Either way, we sat and cried together for the last time. My Daddy was literally hours away from experiencing the glory of the new creation. I could almost HEAR the world fading away and the soft whisper of Heaven calling as my Dad was ushered into the presence of Jesus, leaving only the shell of his body for those of us who loved him so much.

Thinking about that day hurts. I don't like to dwell on it, mostly because, at the end of the day, I sat on that bed without a dad. But the experience of watching life mingle with death, of FEELING the world fade away as the presence of God consumes a place and takes one of His own HOME...there really is no way to explain or describe it. At the beginning of that week, LH was a husband, a father, a friend, a brother. As his physical body faded, and as he painfully breathed his last breath in the womb of this earth, he was birthed into Heaven...where he was simply HIS.

Life out of death...Be still, my soul...be still. He is.