Chapter
11

I got back into the car and drove back to the hospital. I parked back in the ER parking lot because it was the only way into the hospital at that late hour. I sat in the car as rain and lightning filled the sky. I cried sobbing, wrenching tears as I sat in the car alone in the driver’s seat. I eventually caught my breath and then realized that people were coming in and out of the ER. Even though my life seemed to have stopped, life for others was still going on. It was baffling for a second????? Other people’s lives were still going on. Other people continued to have heart attacks, sprained ankles, broken bones, lacerations, and even babies. That also felt overwhelming to me. I cried again, but this time it was just a constant stream of tears coming from my face. I didn’t have the strength to wail. I then tilted my head back on the head rest of the driver’s seat. I caught a glimpse of the passenger side back seat of our car in the rearview mirror. This is where Jackson would sit. Now that seat would be empty. How could I ever even breathe again?

 

Then I remembered his face as he would smile and laugh in that back seat. He would belt out a song with any opportunity he was given. He loved several songs that were on a CD that I had from Philips, Craig, and Dean. One song that he loved for me to play was called “A Friend Called Grace.” He would bob his head to the beat of the song and then say in a yelling voice, “DADDY! I HAVE A FRIEND CALLED GRACE!”

 

Well, that was true. In Jackson’s preschool class there was a girl named Grace, and she was his friend. I knew Grace, and I knew that they were friends. However, every single time the song played, Jackson would yell, “I HAVE A FRIEND CALLED GRACE!” He must have yelled that to me close to a hundred times. So now, as I lay my head back on that head rest of the driver’s seat looking into the rearview mirror to an empty back seat, suddenly I hear a memory of Jackson yelling again, “DADDY, I HAVE A FRIEND CALLED GRACE!”

 

This time, however, I didn’t take the memory as being in reference to a girl he knew in preschool.

 

This brought me to a smile.

 

There were still tears rolling down my face, but a smile was coming from how God was using a memory of Jackson to teach me the Truth of God.

 

Well, I turned on the CD player in the car and played the song. A flood of memories filled my head.

 

The year before this, Niki bought me my first Philips, Craig, and Dean, CD. She bought it for me for Father’s Day. The group had a song called, “I want to be just like you.” It was an inspirational song encouraging dads to be like Jesus because our sons often want to be like us. Niki gave me that CD and pointed to that particular song for me to hear.

 

Later, I had bought the CD that I had in the car that night. It was their CD called, “Lifeline.” I sat there in the car that night and began to listen to these songs. There was one song at the end of the CD that had previously caught my attention. At this time, Grams (my grandmother) was in her mid-80’s. When I first heard that last song, I thought to myself that it would be a great song to play at Grams’ funeral. When I listened to the song that night in the parking lot of the ER of the hospital, I realized that it wasn’t going to be played at Grams’ funeral, but I would play it at Jackson’s. At this time, I was always petrified at the thought of speaking in public. I just couldn’t do it. I would studder like crazy. I would make no sense. I would always sound like an idiot. However, I knew that I should speak at Jackson’s service. I listened to that song, and then started jotting down notes on the back of receipts that I found in the car. Jackson’s Service wrote itself.

 

The name of that last song was called,

 

“Will You Love Jesus More?”

Phillips, Craig, and Dean

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I feel quite sure if I did my best
I could maybe impress you
With tender words and a harmony
A clever rhyme or two

But if all I've done in the time we've shared
Is turn your eyes on me
Then I've failed at what I've been called to do
There's someone else I want you to see

 

Will you love Jesus more
When we go our different ways
When this moment is a memory
Will you remember His face
Will you look back and realize
You sensed His love more than you did before
I pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more

 

I'd like to keep these memories
In frames of gold and silver
And reminisce a year from now
About the smiles we've shared
But above all else I hope you will come
To know the Father's love
When you see the Lord face to face

You'll hear Him say "well done"

 

Will you love Jesus more
When we go our different ways
When this moment is a memory
Will you remember His face
Will you look back and realize
You sensed His love more than you did before
I pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more

 

Will you love Jesus more
When we go our different ways
When this moment is a memory
Will you remember His face
Will you look back and realize
You sensed His love more than you did before
I pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more

 

I pray for nothing less
Than for you to love Jesus more

 

 

I arrived back at the hospital and joined Alex and Elna in bed. I had an empowering nap, and then we woke up for Alex to be discharged from the hospital. According to the doctors, she wasn’t out of danger yet, but she was already a walking miracle. We drove back to the house. I remember Elna and I gasping a bit as we drove past the place in the woods where the accident occurred. It was the way that we would drive to our home there for the next twenty years. As we passed it that first time, we could clearly see parts of the Suburban in the trees.

 

As we arrived home, I remember the house having both family and church members there. Many people had arranged for food to be brought to the house. It never occurred to me that food, soft drinks, water, etc. were required, but they were. The Church stepped up. The Church thought for us when we couldn’t. There was so much busyness going on around the house. It was Sunday morning, July 12th, 1998, and regular church services were going on. Jackson’s services would be after church.

 

Many relatives started to trickle in. The diversity of the family was never clearer than that day. Deep South meets Northern India. Many had seen each other briefly as an oddity on our wedding day on June 1, 1985, but these were vastly different circumstances. Jackson and Alex embodied the merging of these two cultures.

 

1 Corinthians 12:12-27 New International Version

 

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

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