The Ultimate Transition
My mother, my four siblings, and I were gathered around my father on my parent’s bed, waiting anxiously for the hospice nurse to show up. Dad was struggling for breath and could not speak. He was dying and was clearly in great pain and distress. We sang his favorite hymns, talked of what a wonderful father he was, told him how much we loved him. He understood everything we said, but was unable to respond. When the nurse finally arrived, she took one look at Dad and immediately mixed up a dose of pain medication – a dose heavy enough to put him into a sleep from which he would never awake. Spoon in hand, she approached the bed – but then stopped short, hovering just outside the circle of our family. Something was happening, and she was wise enough, sensitive enough, to notice it and allow it room to take place. My mother sensed it, too, and moved away from Dad’s side, urging her five children closer to him.
Dad began looking at each of us in turn. First Betsy, then Tim, then John, then Mary, holding their gaze for a long moment. The room was completely silent; no one spoke a word. Then he turned to me. I noticed his eyes had changed color, from hazel to a deep, luminous dark brown. My father gazed at me with these dark, luminous eyes, and I caught my breath as I felt what was pouring out of them. “Oh!” I gasped. “You love me!” Dad’s eyes were on fire with love – it was almost unbearable, the purity and intensity of love that poured forth from his eyes and burned into my heart.
My father held my gaze, his eyes glowing, his love for me blazing. I will never forget that moment – it was the most exquisite, perfect expression of love, unlike anything I have ever experienced – absolutely stunning and heart-opening. I can still feel it, and I already know that it is transforming my life.
Then Dad searched out Mom with his eyes, and she crawled over the bed and put her face up to his. He trained those glowing eyes on her, and she received, as we all had, his powerful, wordless gift of love.
The book of Malachi contains one of my Dad’s favorite bible verses: “And prove me not herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be enough room to receive it.”
In my father’s final moments, with his eyes alone, he opened the windows of heaven and poured out the most incredible blessing to his family. He became what he always wanted to be, what he worked his whole life to become: pure love.
Caroline McNerney