HOME FREE

He died on Good Friday morning. He said he was going to.

For months, my Uncle Carl was misdiagnosed with everything from post-operative stress syndrome to anorexia. Three or four days before he passed away, the doctor said, "It's pancreatic cancer."

I went to visit him in the hospital on that Maundy Thursday evening in the Spring of 1987. His face was gaunt, his body frail. He reminded me of a photograph of a P.O.W. from the Vietnam War. Yet there was an unmistakable glimmer in his eyes.

I loved my Mother's brother so much. He taught me how to ballroom dance. We acted in a community theater troupe together. He even sang in a church choir that I directed. As a free and forgiven recovering alcoholic, he was my walking example of the love of Christ.

In that hospital room I wanted to be strong. Instead, I wept, overcome with grief and unable to speak.

"Oh, now, are you crying for me?" he rasped, his eyes piercing my heart. "Now, now, don't you be sad for me. I'm sad for you, darlin'. In a little while, I'm going home, but you have to stay. Now tell me, what's today?"

"Thursday," i whispered, reaching for the tissue box on the bed stand.

"Thursday, yes...yes...one more day and I'm going home to be with my Jesus. He told me I could come home on Friday....yes, only one more day." His eyes focused on somewhere I couldn't see. His face was smooth with a peace I did not have in that moment.

And he was right. He did go home the next morning. Perhaps knowing ahead of time helped him to bear the excrutiating pain of his last  days on earth. Maybe the knowing ahead of time helped Jesus to bear his last days, too...I don't know...maybe it's not for me to know. But that evening in the hospital, my Uncle's eyes became windows into a very real eternity...an eternity filled with hope and light and love and, most of all,  home.