This morning at 2:25am my husband's grandfather -Lieutenant Harry Ford passed away. On July 4th we went to visit and quickly found him and Grandma Joyce at their dinner table. Grandpa Harry didn't look right. He couldn't lift his head up, he wasn't communicating well, he couldn't be understood at all. He wasn't himself. We spoke with the staff at the assisted living facility and they had been taking his vitals regularly because of what we were witnessing. He had a low grade fever and they ordered a chest xray after Harry advocated that Grandpa just didn't seem right. No pneumonia on this xray, but days later he was hospitalized. Hospitalized with Legionairres pneumonia. A bacterial pneumonia that was later determined to be in the shower system at the facility he lived. According to the local newspaper's article on Friday 8 people had been infected ranging from 63 to 99 years old. He was one of them at 93 years old.
93 year old World War 2 Navy Test Pilot. A gentleman who just celebrated his 69th wedding anniversary with his wife Joyce. Sixty Nine Years. Can you imagine losing your best friend of over 70 years? Since the 4th we visited almost daily with our kids, who adored him, for the last several days and while he was in the hospital. Each day we saw more decline. He slipped away to the Lord this morning. No more pain, no more wheelchair, no more medicine. Just enjoying himself with old friends and family in the land of eternity. But knowing that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It does. It hurts to hear your husband sob at the loss of his grandfather, to hear your children repeatably cry out for him, to see them recite the Lord's prayer at his bedside on their own, to hug him one more time.
But on my way home today I feel like I got a message. It mind sound hokey to many but here's what happenned:
I went in to work for a few hours today and on the way home stopped to get Harry's suit pants. I pulled to the sliding glass door at Martinizing Dry Cleaners. The young man, maybe 25 asked me how I was. I robotically said "oh I'm fine" and I turned to put the stuff in the back seat across from me. I turned back to thank him and he said "need a prayer?". I paused thinking it sounded like he just asked me if I needed a prayer. That can't be right. "What?" He responds "I said do you need a prayer?"
Wow. Pause. "Oh I do, I lost a family member this morning. How did you know I needed a prayer?"
He tells me kindly "I felt it" and then leans forward to my open car window and offers his hand and says "so let's do it. Let's pray" and then he proceeds to offer a prayer for my family, one for strength and courage for me, one to welcome my family to where he went -almost hesitant to say Heaven- and he prayer for several minutes for a perfect stranger. In the middle of his work day.
I honestly didn't know what to do. I was trying to listen to his prayer but I had never experienced this and kept thinking what a testament to the Lord that this young guy is giving. He has on a wooden croos a WWJD bracelet and he just offered support to someone he thought needed it.
I told him he was a blessing and his momma did good and I drove off crying. It was a message from above that it'd be okay.
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