Part 1: Jacob Runs to Jesus

Our "year of firsts" is almost complete.  It has been a hard, hard road for all of us.  I've not spoken of what I'm about to tell you very much and if at all only to a few people who where there with us as Jacob passed.  But I need to do this now - tell you the story of  how Jacob left us to be with Jesus.


On New Year's Eve last year we spent our last evening as a family together with Jacob while he was conscious. We'd been sick, unable to visit him for fear of giving him the virus that ravaged our family like an enemy trying to keep us from our boy.   It had been about 2 weeks since we had been able to visit because of the sickness we had in the house - two of the last four weeks Jacob had left on his pilgrimage here on earth.  He had not really been alone during that time because we have allies like Debbie and Lois who left their own families to stay with him often.  But Jacob missed us. Finally better, we all went to see him.

Jacob was elated to see us finally.  We walked in and even with a Fever his smile lit up the room and leaked under the door - probably momentarily blinding an unsuspecting passer by.  In between fevers Jacob was alert and talking to us.  We sat with him snapped together some legos, and listened has he caught up with his sister and lifelong friend -Naomi. The time came for us to leave.  The weather was getting bad and we needed to get everyone home safe. We promised Jacob that we would return the next day. For the first time since March, Jacob cried when we left.  It broke my heart .  I comforted Jake as best I could and I promised him again that I would return the next day.  Then I walked down the long hall with my family working through the logistics of returning through the next day's forecasted snow storm.

After some slow driving down I 25, some sliding and near misses we got home safely.  We celebrated the new year as best you can when you have a sick child.  While I brewed beer with Joshua, Lorrie shared her heart with our friends and allies gathered at our home.  Truthfully I don't remember much more other than racking the beer into the primary and then somehow winding up in bed with Lorrie -both of us exhausted as usual.

We were jolted awake by a call early on New Year's day.  "Jacob has lost consciousness -he's in the ICU - we're not sure he will make it through the day - you need to come now."  We grabbed what we needed and headed to Denver in the waning snow storm.  More discussion, more urgent phone calls..something about "...do you want us to take steps to resuscitate him?"  Driving....council on the phone from our dear friend Bruce and his wife Judy.  "...what do we do?"  and "we can't tell you what to do". Prayer..."Lord we don't know what to do"...and..."please can we have more time...".

We made our way to the ICU. Nurses close to Jacob, who have grown to love him like we do met us outside his door...to both give comfort to us and receive it from us because by now...they had become Jacob's big sisters.  Tears. Jacob was laying in the bed being helped to breathe by a CPAP machine while another fever racked his body.  And there we stayed with him.  Hours. We prayed and talked with him. We struggled with "...so how do you let him go?...do you let him go?"  Unfathomable. Unthinkable.  But...inevitable.

That first night  I sat with Jacob. We talked.  A couple of times he squeezed my hand as I talked with him. I also wrote about our conversation (that post is here).   There in the sterility of the ICU and all its hardness, I prayed and wondered what it would be like for Jake when he saw Jesus.  Weeks before Jesus had answered my prayer: "I have to know if he knows you Jesus..." and that same evening Jacob told me  " Oh, I already did that Dad..."  almost like -really you didn't know Dad?  - what a huge night that was for me.  Early the next morning, I asked Jake to do me a favor...."when you get there - you have to look up Kieth Green and Rich Mullins for me"  ..he squeezed my hand....deal.

Later that morning of the 2nd, I was joined by Lorrie who had spent that night at Brent's Place.  And we sat with Jacob together. Our Friends who had walked with us on this journey for so long joined us.  God provided wise counsel through our friend Gary who drove over  to be with us from a friends house in Denver where he and his bride Lois were celebrating the new year.

If you want to meet someone who walks in his calling it's Gary.  It's safe to say that Gary taught us how to let Jacob go.  He had served others for many years as a hospice chaplain.  He blessed us with his wisdom and his candor.  God used him and Lois to hold us.  Together they taught us how to help Jacob's brothers and sisters, and what they would likely need from us their parents as we prepared for his death.  Lois and Gary took us to lunch and we talked about Hannah, Noah, Naomi and Joshua.  Lorrie and I weren't sure if we could do this, let alone putting our kids in the position of watching Jacob struggle for each breath.  "They need to be here" Gary gently told us.  "They need to be with you and Jacob - they will need this to heal".  On the surface it seemed counter intuitive, to watch them hurt so that they can heal.  But through the fog, we knew Gary was right.  That man blessed us in that conversation in ways we are still discovering.

We returned to the hospital after having made arrangements with our friends Cliff and Lorielle to bring the kids up.  Cliff had stayed the night at our home that first night as I sat with Jacob and Lorrie tried her best to get some rest at Brent's place.  I know that during that time Cliff did what he does best: press into the lives of hurting people and offer hope.  I can see now that his mercy on our children was to be a crucial part for preparing them for the coming day. They arrived around noon navigated the maze of halls and nurses stations and peaked through the glass doors into Jacob's room in the ICU.

Two of Jacob's nurse sisters, Allie and Chris or maybe it was Chelsea, came down and made what would be a very important suggestion: take him back to familiar surroundings...his room on the 7th floor. Lorrie and I made the arrangements with the hesitant ICU staff right away.  For the last time we walked along side Jacob as his caregivers maneuvered his bed through the corridors of Children's Denver.  Down the hall, to the elevator and back to what had become our Denver Home on 7E. We gently placed Jacob into the room that had his beautiful person splattered all over it.  Broncos posters, Lego kits both completed and not completed all over the place - like mushrooms.  Origami birds, video games, nerf pistols and the coolest globe ever.  This was his room and everyone knew it.

There is a limit on how many people you can have in a room on 7E.  But rules are made to be broken and once again we broke the rules.  It was a beautiful time.  Our Nehemiah, Debbie Allen and Matt joined us.  Gary, Lois,  Cliff and Lorielle and their son CJ - our loyal allies sat with us.  We worshiped.  We told Jacob stories, we held his hand. That room became a holy place.  Jesus was there.  His presence was real -both in the room and on the entire floor.  Peace.  Comfort.  It was almost as if Jacob's leukemia was a climb to the top of a mountain, and all of us including Jacob were resting - taking in the view.  We stayed all day and into the evening.

By now I was exhausted having been up for the past 2 days.  Lorrie wanted to stay with our boy that night - just her.  I took the kids and our allies over to Brent's Place for some much needed rest.  I collapsed into a dreamless sleep as Cliff, Debbie and CJ continued to talk in the other room with Noah, Hannah and Naomi.  As I slept, amazing conversations and events unfolded.  A quarter mile away at Children's Hospital Lorrie stayed with Jacob in the same way she had on countless other nights.

She read to him and talked with him into the night.  She took a shower and made the little couch into a bed as we both had done on countless other nights while staying with Jacob.  She slept some.  She remembered.  About a year earlier she wondered out loud to me "why has connecting with Jacob been so hard?  You see we adopted Jacob at 11 - the time when young boys start pulling away from Mom and bonding to their Fathers.  Each adoption of an older child comes with unique challenges. Adopting Jacob was no exception.  But for Lorrie, who's heart it is to nurture, to not have the opportunity to nurture her older son in the way she wanted had been especially hard and it wounded her deeply.  

As she laid in the room in the glow of Jacob's Christmas lights. Like Mary, she treasured things up in her "Momma Heart".  Remembering what Gary told us about the process of a soul leaving the body Lorrie checked on Jacob intermittently.  In the back of her mind Lorrie must have remembered what he said..."if you're the one there when Jesus calls him...you are the winner..." As she checked on Jacob one last time, Jacob surprised mom as he opened his eyes and looked at her and I am sure Jesus himself standing by her. And then he closed them.  Lorrie was the winner - she birthed her son into heaven and the 'nurturing wound' was gone.

Jesus is good like that.

To be continued in the next post.... Part 2.