After the many family and friends had gradually and reluctantly left Dad's side last night, Nana, Dad's mom, was one of the last to leave. After a long day of expecting that the end could come at any moment, we were all starting to wonder if Dad might be sticking around with us for a while longer. Nana had been sitting in a chair by Dad's side, holding his hand, never moving for the entire day. At about ten o'clock she was waiting to board the elevator to go home with Sandy and Joe to get a few hours sleep. I said to her, "I'll see you tomorrow, we may have him for another day." She looked at me and said "No. I don't want him to be here tomorrow, it's too much. I told him my last good bye. It's time for him to go home."

In the end it was Cara, Katherine, Mom and I settling in for the night with Dad. The three of us kids had been making calls and plans and arrangements, and we came in to the room to find Mom in her pajamas lying next to Dad in the bed, talking to him. She said that this was her last chance to feel him next to her, "in this body that I have loved." Of course she was sort of squinched in between him and the railing, so we eased him over and made room for her. It was like he was home in bed with her, in the bed where he jokingly pointed and told Cara last week "Right there. I'm dying right there, next to your mother." We were talking about Dad, and the day, and the way things were, while Katherine got comfy and squeaked around in her sleeping bag on the air mattress, and Cara got ready for bed. Mom was describing something a friend had been thinking about, how in heaven there will be no more faith, because we'll have "sight," and no more need for hope, because we'll have the Object of our longing. How the one that will finally "remain," of that trinity of spiritual gifts, will be love.

For a while I had been thinking about the meaning behind Dad's many exhalations and vocalizations, as we listened for days to his murmurs and groans, and later to his labored breathing, as he tried to speak, or else to express something deeper than speech. I remembered Romans 8, and the idea of "groaning" there. Like all creation groans to be set free from "bondage to decay," like a mother groans in childbirth--the pain that is necessary, always, to give birth to great joy--like we groan for "the redemption of our bodies," and even the Spirit of God himself intercedes for us with "groans that words cannot express." Amazing that groans can be more expressive than words, and that words can fail to articulate the longing that a groan embodies. Groans "too deep for words." I think it was these deep longings that Dad's groans expressed--the longing to remain with his wife and his children and mother, along with the longing to be finished, home, to be free of his ruined body--the longing to be done with suffering and to see it turned to joy--the deep longing for resurrection and to see the face of his Savior.

We talked about all of this, and then started talking and laughing quietly about Dad, while still shedding tears, like we had done many times over the past few days with Sandy, Christine and Daisy--and with Julie over the phone as she drove the 1800 miles to get here. We were talking about who he was, what was so wonderful about him and why we liked him, and the things people had said about him that day, the hymns we'd sung--"When peace like a river," "My Jesus, I love thee," "My hope is built on nothing less," "On Jordan's Stormy Banks," "In Christ alone my hope is found." We were marveling at Dad's ability to cut to the heart of the matter, how he was capable of seeing the truth so clearly in situations where others got hung up on details and overwrought scenarios and pride and politics. How Dad was actually apolitical, because when he was most himself he had no agenda other than the truth, and the unity of the body of believers, and the good of his friends. He was so able to minister to others because he was all but free of self-regard and self-importance. There was no pretense whatsoever about him: he never pretended to be something more or less than who he was, never fawned and never patronized, and this made everyone he knew feel safe and loved around him, like they could relax and be themselves too. That was the environment in which real discipleship and communion could happen.

So we all unwound a bit after the big groups and the intensity of the day, and I think Dad sensed that, and as we relaxed he relaxed too. I was saying to Mom that Dad seemed to be lingering on even though we had started to pray that God would take him once Julie, Rob and the kids had arrived and spent time with him--but that it was nice. We were just spending time together and reflecting, and a burden was beginning to be lifted. At that point we said to each other that as long as Dad wanted to linger, to tarry with us there on the shore, we would linger with him, because we were still reluctant to let him go, even though we were praying for an end for him. Cara was saying what would turn out to be a last, tearful good bye, and she was by the bed sharing some time with him and Mom. Katherine was remembering the waterskiing incident of many years ago when she (claims she) almost drowned, and how Dad jumped in to save her, but right after that, being Dad, told her to get right back up on those skis. We were talking too about how the next moment for Dad, the next time he opened his eyes, all the pain would be finished, and he would be with Jesus, "face to face."

And moments later when the end came it was very swift and almost miraculously peaceful. Shortly before midnight there was a pause in Dad's breathing, and then he started breathing again, smaller and smaller, with spaces in between, but quieter and quieter. It felt different, and we knew he was very close. We called Kate over from her bed where she had been lying as we chatted, and we all held on to Dad as he breathed his last breaths and the pulse in his neck slowed and then stilled. It was perhaps 45 seconds from when we first noticed the change in his breathing. Immediately after, it was like a huge burden had been lifted off of all of us, and it was eerily quiet. Dad's breathing had created a rhythm of life, however fragile and tenuous, in the room, but that breathing was also the voice of pain, and it was the groanings of a longing deeper than words. So to hear it stilled was both a relief from suffering and a symbol of loss, but the silence signified joy for Dad--to die is gain--and the fulfillment of his deepest, life's desire.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone reading this for all the love you've shown Dad and us over the past decades, months and days. We are so grateful to be in the midst of such an amazing community. More from us later, as there is much to do. We will be posting more info here about funeral arrangements and the memorial service this weekend. Peace.