Shalom Existence

My granddaddy was born in 1937. He was 71 years old when he passed yesterday. He was one of the most generous people I knew. He didn’t always have a lot of money, because whenever he got any he would give it away! I cannot count how many times he walked up to me and would put 20, 40, or even 100 dollars in my hands. When I would try to tell him I didn’t need it he would just walk away and wave his hand. Most of the time he would say “Go buy yourself some dinner.”

Don’t get me wrong- he was also a pretty harsh and sometimes gruff man, despite his jovial side. When I was young he really liked to pinch my stomach and talk about my “baby fat.” He could be dry and sometimes going to a restaurant with him meant that you ended up feeling very sorry for the waitress. However, if you were great, then he was great to you.

My granddad definitely lived his life as life for God. He was a beloved minister for many years, and as the years wore on he became the beloved man at the front of my father’s church, who would greet everyone and make everyone feel welcome and wanted. He knew almost everyone, and definitely everyone knew him. He somehow softened in his elder years, although he would still make dry comments about his wife’s habits of keeping everything. “Maire probably has that, but there ain’t no way your finding it in all that mess.” (My grandmother does have a tendency to save absolutely everything).

He said “I love you” in a matter of fact way, loved to comment how beautiful babies and children were, smiled at and shook hands with almost everyone, and never ever got that chance to retire (he always said he wouldn’t).

Last year he survived colon cancer by having surgical removal and then had a triple bypass to avoid what doctors said would have been a massive heart attack. He survived all of that, just one year ago, to collapse from an arithmea, leaving him without oxygen for 12 minutes. Perhaps God used that experience to soften his heart and give him a kinder perspective towards life (he admittedly said it did change him). Maybe he needed that before it was his time. Maybe it was not even his time, but mistakes are made because of our (humanity’s) free will. I don’t know. I can’t decide. I am not God. I do know that there was a glimpse of God, why would you let this happen in my prayers and sobs. I do know that I questioned. How do I not?

He was kept alive only by a ventillator for the last 2 days of his life. The decision was finally made through waiting and tests and more tests and more waiting that the brain damage was total and there would be no chance for rehabilitation or recovery. The only thing keeping him alive was machines. As my father and grandmother signed the papers to release the hospital from his care about 20 or so people crowded into his little room to say goodbye. As the nurses came in to remove the tubes and turn the machines to the off position many went into the hall, but we stayed. My family, and my future husband. It was heart wrenching to see the pumps of air raising and lowering his stomach immediately cease.

But as everyone crowded back in the room we joined in prayer and singing, two of his favorite things. Especially the old gospel songs. That is why, of course, Amazing Grace leading into Praise God was appropriate. And as we sang, you could see his heart rate lowering and lowering, and as his heart pumped its last we finished our song, and my granddaddy raised his left hand up, his final act of worship on earth. Everyone in the room saw, and knew, just like him to not be able to join in on an old song, just like him to not be able to ignore us forever. He said goodbye with that worship, and his life on earth was over. The nurses on the floor said they had never seen anything like it before, and as we were leaving my father noticed different nurses walking to other sides of the floor to tell the story. The story that tells miracles do happen, that God does exist, and he existed in the life of Roland Underwood.

In memory of James Roland Underwood, here with his wife, Maire, last year.

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