Parking Decks of Life (Part 2)
Not much sleep the night before.
Not for lack of trying.
Not because of caffeine or chaos — just that strange quiet ache that comes when you realize Heaven is close enough to feel but too far to touch.
I wasn’t watching a movie.
Wasn’t praying.
Wasn’t worshiping.
Just… still.
Somewhere between night and dawn, I felt the veil between this world and the next get thin.
A trembling in the air. A silence so heavy it had weight.
And for a moment, I didn’t breathe.
I just waited.
Morning came like an old hymn.
I picked up my son Vinnie, drove him to the St. Jude Affiliate — the kind of holy ground that smells like antiseptic and faith.
Dropped him off for chemotherapy.
He smiled. Told me it was okay.
And maybe it was.
While he sat in that cold chair getting his blood rewired, I went back home and handled the earthly side — paperwork, signatures, numbers that never tell the story.
Then I went back, slid into the chair beside his bed.
The lights were dim.
The machines hummed lullabies in minor chords.
Benadryl and chemo danced together through his veins — poison and promise waging quiet war.
His chest rose and fell, and I watched him sleep the way a man watches a miracle he doesn’t deserve.
I tried to rest too.
But hospitals don’t sleep.
IVs beeped.
Children whimpered.
Nurses whispered soft courage to the trembling.
And through it all, Vinnie slept — grace disguised as medication.
When it was over, I moved like a ghost through the fluorescent haze to the seventh floor of the parking deck.
Always the seventh.
The top.
Because when you live between hospital visits and heaven’s doorstep, you stop trusting your memory.
I don’t take pictures of parking spots anymore — I just drive to the top.
Same red Kia Soul. Same spot. Same prayer.
And as I descended the spiral of concrete, I prayed in the Spirit.
A father’s groan too deep for words.
It’s a system.
A rhythm of life and death.
Medicine and mercy.
Science and supplication.
Then came Dunkin’ — three glazed donuts and a coffee to chase the metallic taste of chemo out of his mouth.
We rode in silence after some lively conversation.
Just a father and a son enjoying each other’s company.
Just two souls surviving the day.
I dropped Vinnie off at his house.
Then I drove off to…
… Home.
Dogs out.
Shoes off.
A nap waiting somewhere between exhaustion and surrender.
But then — the call.
Brother Tom.
“Are you busy?”
His voice carried the weight of years.
“No,” I said. “What’s up?”
He’d been caring for his wife, Cheryl — a saint slowly fading in hospice care at the nursing home.
He, too, was fighting his own failing body — a walker where once there was strength, a tremor where once there was fire.
And yet… faith.
“I think I have to go to the ER,” he said.
“As soon as I get my dogs inside, I’ll be right there.”
When I got there, he needed help — real help.
The kind that tests your back and your heart at the same time.
His legs wouldn’t cooperate.
But his mouth — oh, his mouth still preached.
Quoting Scripture between breaths.
Testifying between winces.
His faith stronger than his legs.
At the ER, they scanned him, poked him, tested him.
The man fell earlier that day.
Hit his head.
No damage, thank God.
But his body… weary.
Still, he smiled.
Still, we laughed.
Still, he introduced me to the nurses: “This is my pastor.”
And then we went to work — turning tears into laughter, despair into worship.
Hours later they had found nothing.
“Discharge papers,” came the words.
So I drove him home.
His son waited by the door — anxious, quiet.
When I opened the car door, Brother Tom shot up like a miracle.
“Spring chicken,” I joked.
We laughed.
But halfway to his recliner, his legs betrayed him again.
They just quit.
Folded like broken prayer.
He fell — knees first, heart second.
Pain twisted across his face like lightning over a mountain range.
“My knees!” he gasped.
So we waited.
He caught his breath.
And together, his son and I lifted him — the way faith lifts a broken soul back into its chair.
He sat there, pale and quiet.
“I’m not going back into the nursing home,” he said softly.
And my heart… broke.
Because I knew what he meant.
He meant he wanted to finish this race on his feet — not in a bed.
So we prayed.
Father,
breathe strength into Brother Tom.
Breathe comfort into Cheryl.
Let Your Spirit fill the cracks where medicine cannot reach.
Let Your will — good, acceptable, perfect — be done in the bodies of these two souls who have loved You well.
Let Your mercy hum louder than the machines.
Let Your angels hold them when their legs can’t.
And let us never grow tired of carrying one another —
in cars, in hospitals, in prayer.
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen!
Because this is what life really is:
a parking deck between heaven and earth,
where we wait,
weep,
and watch for the sunrise.