Frank was a 68-year-old man recently diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer when I first visited with him and his wife. It was just the two of them, and the calm and peaceful way they accepted the inevitability of his death was amazing to see.
You had the sense that death was not new to them or that they had come close to it before. In time I discovered that they had lost their only son in combat in Vietnam and because they were both believers, they knew they would see him again.
Just a few weeks after Frank was diagnosed I was sitting with him when he turned to me and said, “My son, John, is here with me now; he said it’s time for me to go. Can you see him? He’s sitting over there in the chair; he is beckoning for me to go with him.”
He was sitting up in bed looking not at all like someone who was about to die. I replied that I could not see John but asked him to tell me how he looked. He explained in detail that he looked very handsome, was dressed in his uniform and was smiling. Frank and John had enjoyed a very close and trusting father-son relationship in life and now that he’d seen his son, Frank seemed totally unafraid to leave life as he knew it and go with him.
It was amazing to see Frank’s joy, and although his wife was very sad at the thought of losing him, she thought it wonderful that John had come for his dad. They knew they would be in heaven together for all eternity.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of ways God brings comfort to His children as He draws them home. Frank died in his sleep just a few nights later at peace with both his life and his impending death.
