Four Years

First anniversary, November 2000

Four years ago tonight, at right about 9 p.m., I saw my husband alive for the last time. As we always did, I kissed him goodbye at the door when he left to go practice the organ at church for the next day's Sunday service. I'm glad we had that custom. You never know when the last kiss, the last touch, the last look will come.

I checked my email, surfed the Internet for a while, finally had a midnight snack of cake and milk and went to bed about 11:30, watching an old movie on TV. Cody wasn't home when I drifted off to sleep before midnight, but that wasn't unusual; he was a professional musician, that organ was his glory, and he often practiced 3 or 4 hours before coming home, so I expected he'd be back when he was done.

Usually I wake up momentarily at least once or twice in the night, sometimes to make a bathroom run, but that night I fell into a deep sleep and was conscious of nothing at all until morning. At five minutes to seven, long before the alarm was due to go off, I suddenly opened my eyes for some reason. I looked at the clock. I looked at Cody's empty half of the bed, obviously untouched. And I knew something was terribly wrong.

I stumbled into the living room - perhaps he came home and fell asleep on the couch? No, not there. His car was not in the driveway. The porch light was still on. Groggy, unable to focus my thoughts, I couldn't quite figure why he wasn't home. I called the church, knowing he could hear the phone ring in the choir room. No answer. How strange.

I pulled on some jeans, my boots, a sweatshirt, and drove my truck over to the church, less than 2 minutes from the house. There was his car, parked by the choir room door. I got out, pounded on the locked door. No response. It was cold and overcast, with a light mist falling, the sky was gray like the jacket I was wearing. My mind was still in a fog; I couldn't figure out why he would stay there all night, why he wouldn't answer the phone or come to the door. I walked around and tried the public entrance on one side of the church. Locked. I walked around the building and tried the other big door. That was locked too. It made no sense.

I walked back around and stood there staring stupidly at the choir room door, wondering what to do, the cold mist falling silently on my hair, my face, speckling my jacket. I hadn't brought a cell phone with me. I was about to decide to get back in the truck and go to the house and call somebody when I heard someone calling my name. I turned and saw a little old lady who lived a couple doors down from the church, walking up to meet me. She had noticed Cody's car there and was wondering about it too. I told her he hadn't come home last night, and she offered to go back to her house and call the preacher to come unlock the church, which I was grateful for.

I sat in my truck and smoked a cigarette, maybe two, and by that time the preacher was there, pretty quick but it was a very small town. She unlocked the main door, and we walked into the sanctuary. From the back row, we could see Cody sitting slumped over in the big red bishop's chair next to the organ. The preacher hugged my shoulders for a moment, then went to her office to call an ambulance. I walked on up the aisle alone, up the chancel steps, and knelt in front of the chair, holding my darling man gently in my arms, speaking softly, telling him how much I loved him.

No response. Cold. Stiff. Gone.

It is very hard to describe the shock to the mind when you realize that this person, this warm, living, breathing human being that you love oh so dearly, is now a thing - like a log, a stone, a fencepost. Not moving. Not seeing. Not feeling. A thing, not a man.

It must have happened quickly; a comforting thought later. His music books and organ shoes were sitting neatly on the bench, as if he had just walked in and set them down. He was sitting very neatly, very naturally, just as you would if you had just sat down in that chair, feet on the floor, one hand resting on his leg. But the other arm was hanging off the chair, and his upper body was leaning in that direction too. It must have hit him, the heart attack, just after he placed his books on the organ bench; perhaps he felt a little odd, and sat down to take stock of himself. And then he was gone.

Now of course it was a great loss to me, and many others. But when all that is taken into account, what a good, good death he had. There in the heart of the church he had devoted his whole life to, only a few steps from the altar, in the shadow of the great golden cross suspended overhead - and next to his beloved organ, which he so loved to play, and with which he had touched many, many hearts with magnificent sacred music for decades.

What better place, what better way could there be to go - if you have to go?

I wept a lot, of course, in the days that followed. But for me. Not for him, knowing my darling man was beyond all tears - forever. Gone home so quickly, quietly, easily. No agony, no lingering, no dread, no fear. What a blessing for him. For anyone.

Blessed are the merciful; for they shall be shown mercy.

I've written before about Cody and me here and here. A favorite of his: