 Dying Children - From The Child's Perspective
I grew up being told I would not grow up. By the grace of God I beat the odds and am here today. But I thought my reflections of what it was like as a child thinking about death and eternity might be somehow helpful or comforting to anyone here who may have a child with a serious illness.
I understood when I was five or six years old that my friends would grow up and get married and have families, but I probably would not. I knew that I was likely to die before I finished elementary school. I knew that little box with wires attached to my chest, that I had to carry around with me, was monitoring a heart that could stop at any time - mine. I knew that someday when I passed out during Physical Education, instead of waking up at Texas Children's Hospital I might not wake up at all.
I didn't fear death, per se, but rather the process of death. I saw other young patients at the hospital get weaker and weaker and then one day they would no longer be there. I saw the way these young friends suffered and hoped that when my time came it would be quick, because I knew quick was painless - after all, I'd collapsed after pushing myself too hard in P.E. and flatlined more than once, so I knew the only feeling was ... no feeling, no thought, nothing (until the paramedics brought me out of it, which wasn't so pleasent).
I used to lay in bed at night, unable to sleep because I either had a test the next day or I was waiting to hear the results from the last test. I'd put my hand on my chest and contemplate the miracle of each beat of my heart and wonder how long it would continue. I'd wonder what it would feel like to be dead, and what my friends and family would think and do and feel after I was gone. I wondered what Heaven would be like and strangely I was at peace with these thoughts, and the only troublesome thing was that the adults around me didn't want to talk about it.
Each night when I said my prayers before bed I would pray, Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I shoud die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take. And then I would silently pray that when my time came, it would be peacefully during my sleep so that when my body was found I would simply appear to have gone to sleep - for eternity.
Anyway, there is much more I could write, but I don't want to say too much and cause pain for someone here who is losing or has recently lost a child.
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"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." ~ Hebrews 11:1 ~
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