Walking into the Storm: A Traumatic Ending to a Beautiful Life

I’ve been thinking the last few days that I need to tell the story of Jim’s death from start to finish. Mostly for me. Some for those who want to hear it but don’t want to ask.

It was Tuesday evening, July 14. My parents had been here for a long weekend and had left that morning.  We had finished dinner and were getting ready for our evening exercise. I was tired and not really feeling like getting out in the heat. “Which cup are we taking for Susan?” Jim asked.

“What do you mean – which cup?” I replied, impatiently. “There’s only one cup out.”

I apologized for being impatient as we got our children buckled into the car.

We began driving toward Harding’s campus, where we always go for our walk. He drove to the end of the street and turned right. I turned back to check and make sure the garage door was closed, as he always asked me to do. It was. I started reading to him from the gospel of Luke – we were working together reading through the New Testament. “Did you see those buildings being torn down?” he asked.

“Of course I didn’t see the buildings,” I said, exasperated. “I was reading.”

“You’ll have to notice on the way back,” he said, cheerfully. I still haven’t noticed…

When we arrived at our destination, I apologized again. “I really don’t know why I’m so irritable,” I said.

He turned to me and looked me in the eye. “Stacey, I love you. Even when you’re irritable. But, maybe some exercise outdoors will help your state of mind.”

It was our best outdoor exercise since Chris was born. We talked some – I can’t remember what about. At certain points along our walk, he would break off from the kids and me and run an extra jaunt. As we neared the end, we were both so hot and tired, but in good moods. He broke off from me one last time, as I said, “We’ve both got this!”

“We’ll see,” he said.

I finished my route before he did. I ended the workout on my Apple watch and began my cooldown walk around a small parking lot near the larger one where we parked. As I finished that loop, he came running down the sidewalk, his bright blue shirt shining in the evening sun. “Make that loop again,” he said as he crossed the crosswalk and slowed down to begin his cooldown. I did what he asked.

When I turned around to complete the last half of the loop, I saw him laying on the pavement in the bigger parking lot where we’d parked. I thought he’d gotten tired and maybe a little overheated, so I started to walk toward him. As I noticed that he really wasn’t moving, I began to jog. As I got close to him, I began calling his name. No response. I knelt on the ground beside him and shook his shoulder. It was a dead weight. I pushed him onto his back. His head flopped to the side. His jaw was slack. His eyes were open and the pupils fixed. I remembered a story he told about spooking kids in a cemetery by pretending to be dead. “You’d better not be joking with me!” I screamed, as tears flowed from my eyes and I willed my right hand to feel his neck for a pulse. I felt none.

I screamed. I shook him. I cried. A car pulled up. “Is everything ok?” a woman asked.

“I think he’s dead!” I cried.

“Do you know him?”

“He’s my husband!”

“You need to call 911!” she said as she hopped out of the car and came up to me. I fumbled with my phone, finally typing in the numbers.

I don’t remember how many people came running at various times. One man was convinced he felt a weak pulse. Another said, “He’s shaking. He must have a pulse.”

He wasn’t shaking. Not like they thought. His muscles were quivering – much like the hearts I’d seen in ventricular fibrillation during the time I spent in grad school. He really didn’t have a pulse. I knew it. The EMTs verified it when they got there. I watched them do CPR. I watched them shock his heart. I watched him void his stomach on the pavement. I saw my children being pushed by a stranger in their double stroller. I don’t know how much Susan saw.

They couldn’t find the key to our car in his pocket, so someone from the university’s Public Safety office drove me to the hospital behind the ambulance. While on the way, I called my Mom. “I think Jim just died,” I told her through my tears. She told me they’d come. When we arrived at the hospital I jumped out of the car before it stopped moving and tried to run behind his stretcher. I was restrained by a man at the door – told I had to go in through other doors to check in and complete the COVID-19 screening.

I waited in the waiting room, trembling. My friend, Trixie, left her home to come to me. I didn’t think until too late to ask her to bring the key to my house, so she drove back home, retrieved the key, and went to my house to pick up things for my children, who were being cared for by our good friends, Jon and Joyce Wrye. I sent text messages to a few friends and family, letting them know what was going on.

The president of the university came and sat with me. So did Jim’s boss. An EMT came out to tell me that they had been able to restart his heart but that he was still in critical condition. I didn’t realize how critical. I was so relieved.

When the ER doctor came to talk to me, I started to understand the seriousness of Jim’s condition. While his heart was beating on its own, he was showing no signs of brain stem activity. He was on a ventilator. It didn’t look good. She said she wanted to get him cleaned up before I saw him.

When I did see him, I could tell it wasn’t good. I sat by him for a few minutes. I think I talked to him a little. I kissed his forehead and noticed that there was still vomit in his ear. I asked the doctor to be straight with me. She told me that it didn’t look good, that I might consider letting his family know that it didn’t look good.

They were getting ready to move him to CCU, and I was so very tired. I was struggling so much because I wanted him to be ok, I wanted him back, I wanted to be with him, but I wanted desperately to get away. They asked me if I wanted to take his shoes, watch, and wedding ring. I slipped his wedding ring off of his finger and looped it on mine so that I could carry everything. When I got to the waiting room on my way out of the hospital, I slid it the rest of the way on. I still wear it every day.

The CCU nurse called me when they got him settled in. She was so sweet, and remembered him from when he was in the CCU in October following his TIA. She made sure that I knew I could call her directly any time to check in. I tried to sleep some. I checked in a couple of times. His condition was the same. My parents arrived sometime around 3:00 AM.

I was able to sleep a little after my parents arrived, but my phone rang just before 5:00 AM. It was the nurse. “James isn’t responding to medications to raise his blood pressure like we want him to,” she said. “You might want to come back.”

July 15, 2020. It was his birthday. I stood at my closet for what seemed like the longest time. What do you wear to go watch your husband die?

I entered through the ER, where they refused entrance to my mother. I felt the heaviness build as I walked toward the CCU alone. He was laying there, flat on the bed, a machine breathing for him. His blood pressures were so low, even though his heart rate was fast. I sat in a chair and leaned my head on the rail of his bed. I think I spoke to him. I can’t remember. The resident physician came in to explain his condition to me. It didn’t look good at all. In fact, he thought it was possible they’d lose him that morning. I asked him if my mother could be with me. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll tell them that she can come.”

That day was such a long, hard day. I felt so numb. When I was in the hospital with him, I felt like I should be home with my kids. When I was home with my kids, I felt like I should be in the hospital with him. I cried a lot. I sat in the corner of his hospital room for quite a while that morning. I didn’t really want to be right next to him. I felt like he was already gone. I didn’t know what I felt. I was just so lost.

At one point, I noticed that there were lots of medical personnel in the room and that the doctor hadn’t left for quite some time. I glanced at the monitor. Jim’s blood pressure was so very low. Low enough that I knew his vital organs weren’t getting enough blood to sustain life. “This could be it,” I thought, and felt like I’d been shocked awake. Eventually, his pressure rose with the medication that they were administering. They didn’t lose him right then, but something changed for me. I knew he was already gone. I knew I was going to have to make the decision no spouse should ever be asked to make. And, even though I knew all of that, I suddenly wanted to be near him – to touch him, to speak to him. That afternoon, I told my mom that I just wanted to crawl in the bed with him and lay there. The nurse couldn’t let me do that, but she brought a reclining chair for me, pushed it right up next to his bed, and lowered the rail so that I could be as close to him as possible. I lay there for most of the rest of the afternoon and evening, just holding his hand. I had to leave every few hours to go nurse my son. I told Jim I was leaving every time and then told him when I returned. I requested that they go ahead and do an EEG so that I could know whether he had any brain activity.

The next day, his sisters were both in town. We received EEG results. The news I knew we would hear – no detectable brain activity. I wept. I asked how long I had. They told me there was no time frame. The nurse and physicians we had that day and the day before were so wonderful and kind that I wanted them to be the ones to help us through the process of ending life support. We planned the rest of the day to give his sisters, niece, and myself time to say goodbye.

Right before it was time to turn off life support, I had time alone with him. I wept loudly – cries that came from the depths of my soul. I promised him that I’d raise his children well, that they’d know who he was, that I’d finish life’s race well. I told him I couldn’t wait to see him in his heavenly body. I started to sing to him. “When peace like a river attendeth my way…” As I sang the verses to the well-known hymn, I willed my voice to get stronger and stronger. I resolved that, no matter how dark the next days got, it would be well with my soul. I heard his sisters singing along with me on the other side of the curtain.

When his sisters and my mother rejoined me, we waited for the doctor to come oversee the removal of life support. While we waited, I felt an urge to pray aloud. It’s so unlike me to pray aloud spontaneously, but I did it anyway. My voice shook with emotion, but was strong and loud as I reminded God of his promise to walk with us into this storm, of his promise to raise us in the end. I called him to keep his promise. I didn’t feel disrespect. I did feel strength. I remembered the prayers recorded in the Bible – where people of God called Him to account for the promises He had made, and I followed their example. I have struggled to pray since then, but the words for that prayer came so quickly, so readily, so strongly. I’m thankful for that.

We stepped out of the room while they removed the ventilator. A nurse came over to pray with us. While she was praying, I noticed another nurse beckoning me back into his room. I slipped behind the curtain and went to his side. He looked a little more like himself without the ventilator, but he was so bloated that it was easy to see that his body had been failing over the last couple of days. The monitor in the room was off, and I found myself wondering how I would know when it was over. His sisters joined me. We cried and kissed him. Eventually, I just felt so completely empty that I sat down by his side and stared blankly while leaning against his still body. I watched the color drain from his lips. The resident came in and silently listened to his chest and checked his eyes. “Is he gone,” one of Jim’s sisters asked. He nodded.

“Time of death?” I heard myself ask.

“6:24.”

“Thank you.”

I stayed a little while with his body and then allowed my mother to walk me to the waiting room while they bathed him and changed his sheets. The nurse came to get us and I went back into the room. I touched his hand. It was cold. Oh, so cold. I shuddered. I felt like I needed to stay longer, like it was expected of me. But, I just wanted to run away. To go home to my babies. To weep alone in our bed. Finally, I cried, “Mom, I can’t stay. I can’t. I feel like I should, but I just can’t do it.”

Our wonderful nurse led me out of the hospital so that I didn’t have to talk to anyone. No judgment. No questioning. Just support.

The next days were grueling days with a full house. We planned. I selected a casket. I made arrangements. I wept when I was alone or just with my parents. It was the end, but it was only the beginning.

Today, we’re almost three weeks out from his collapse. My story is still unfolding. I don’t know what my grief journey will look like. My brain is doing weird things trying to make sense of the trauma. I’ve set up an appointment with a grief counselor. I’m trying to set up my network so that if I really sink into depression, they’ll know. I’m surrounded by family and friends. I’m overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers. And, even though I still struggle to pray real words, I keep trying. Sometimes, a few of them come. Even without them, I have been so confident that God has walked into this darkness with me.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God,  the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Isaiah 43:1-3a

Our Pandemic Baby: The Birth of Christian James

My pregnancy with him was easy, mostly characterized by mental clarity and the building of good physical and organizational habits. I ate well, exercised well, organized my home well. I felt good. During my third trimester, the SARS-CoV2 virus blossomed in the USA. I began teaching online with less than a week’s notice. My fourteen month-old was home full time. My husband was home full time. We worshiped at home. We struggled, like everyone else, to find toilet paper, yeast, and normal cleaning supplies, but mostly we were not severely affected by the pandemic. I worried that Jim would not be able to be with me when I gave birth, and we briefly considered home birth but ultimately decided to continue with our plan to have our baby in the hospital where we’d had our firstborn.

He was due on Monday, May 18. Sunday evening, just before his due date, I noticed a shift in contractions away from typical Braxton Hicks contractions to more labor-like contractions. Because I had labored for 59 hours with my first, I settled in for the long haul. The contractions continued for the next several days, waking me at night, feeling perhaps a little stronger every day. By Wednesday, I was getting concerned about my mental stamina. I was weary, and what I thought was early labor had pressed into more than 60 hours. I knew we were walking into a holiday weekend, and I knew that my contractions with Susan never did become more regular, even during active labor, so I wanted some guidance about how to proceed if I hadn’t met the classic labor signs that are supposed to be the signal to head to the hospital. “If you think you’ve been laboring for that long, go on to the hospital now,” was the answer we received. We decided to wait until Thursday morning so that Jim, at least, could get a good night’s sleep.

We left home at 9:00AM on Thursday. I cried as I told Susan goodbye. I was so sad thinking that I was leaving her, to return days later and turn her little world upside down. And yet, I was 85 hours into what I would later learn was non-productive prodromal labor instead of true early labor. I was weary. I was ready to bring our new baby into the world.

The labor and delivery unit was very busy when we got there. We had our temperatures taken at the door and had masks handed to us at the L&D check-in counter. We spent no time in a waiting room, but were sent directly to triage. Our triage nurse was kind, encouraging, and calm even though she was extremely busy. I had not made any detectable progress since my OB appointment three days earlier, so she called my OB to confer about my case. They decided to monitor my contractions for an hour and then re-check. Still, no progress. Another call to the OB. Unknown to us, he was in the operating room, so we waited a long time. During that wait, my contractions became harder and started coming regularly – about every 2.5 minutes. I started dilating more quickly. When my OB called back, they decided to admit me. And then, everything slowed down. My contractions became erratic and wimpy.

Before the end of the work day, my OB visited me in my L&D room. He wasn’t on call that night, but he assured me that the on-call OB was good. “It’s up to you,” he said. “If you want us to augment your labor, Dr. Wyatt will deliver you tonight. If you want to labor slowly all night, I’ll deliver you tomorrow. I’ll tell Wyatt it’s your call.” I really love how laid back my OB is about these things. Jim and I talked through our decision. I knew from experience with Susan’s birth that I wasn’t interested in Pitocin unless I also had an epidural. Ultimately, we decided to go for Pitocin with an epidural. Everything was started by 8:20 PM. Based on my previous experience, I expected my labor to still take several hours – in fact, I thought it was quite possible that my regular OB would deliver me in the morning, even with the augmentation.

Three hours later, at 11:34 PM, I had dilated to 8 centimeters, and the nurse was telling me to let her know when I felt like pushing. My epidural was good, but not as effective as the one I had with Susan, so I was feeling some pain with my contractions. As soon as she walked out of the room, I felt the first pushing contraction. “No way,” I thought. I waited for a few minutes before telling her what I felt. Sure enough, I was completely dilated when she checked me at 11:57 PM. Dr. Wyatt was in the OR, so I breathed through contractions as best I could while my nurse got things ready. I told her I thought it might take me a while because I pushed for three hours with Susan. She told me that she was pretty sure it wouldn’t take nearly that long this time. By the time she had everything ready, Dr. Wyatt was there and I was so glad. I don’t think I could have kept from pushing much longer.

My pushing and birth this time was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done. Because my epidural was not as effective as my first, I could feel a lot of what was happening. I loved that. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was so empowering to work with the sensations and to listen to my body. I knew when his head was born, his shoulders, and then there was the relieving squish as the rest of his body was born. I pushed for ten minutes - maybe. I kind of lost track of time. I loved the encouragement I received from the nurses, doctor, and my husband. It was kind of like I had my own team of cheerleaders. They were so enthusiastic, so encouraging.

I heard Jim telling me that Christian James had arrived – we didn’t know his sex until he was born. I cried. I wish I could describe the intensity of emotions in those moments just after birth. I remember the same when my first was born. I was so tired, so happy to be done with that hard work, and so very happy to meet my baby.

Chris, like Susan, was Coombs positive, which put him at high risk for jaundice. I anticipated that this time, so I worked hard on nursing him regularly in the first few hours to encourage him to have bowel movements to clear the bilirubin from his system. Even with my efforts, Chris ended up under UV lights to help his body clear the bilirubin. We stayed an extra day in the hospital. Because of pandemic protocol, no one could come to see us – including our sixteen and a half month-old daughter. We missed her so much.

We brought Chris home on Sunday, May 24. We loved reuniting with our daughter. We enjoyed six more days of my mother’s help and company. Susan had bonded with her so well, and I loved watching their relationship grow. We’re home alone as a family of four now. Jim goes back to work on campus on Monday, and I’ll go to work as the only parent at home during the day during this summer. I admit that being outnumbered by children under two years of age feels overwhelming to me, but I’m excited to see what God does in my heart and character as I learn to parent these two precious people. I’ll be praying lots for His Spirit to dwell in me and produce good fruit.

Birth is exciting. It’s a beautiful blend of beginning and end. The end of the hard work of pregnancy, the beginning of a life outside the womb. I’m thankful for the respite from growing a child in my body. I’m excited to watch Chris’ life unfold. I’m grateful for my sweet little family. May God grant us the wisdom and strength to parent these two children well.