Prologue T
my grandfather was the day I came undone. I’d had it with death. I was sick of it. Time and time again, it had crept in and snatched those precious to me, leaving nothing but pain and grief to take up residence in my heart. I had barely turned twenty when he died, but even as a young boy I still felt the paralyzing effects and devastation death left behind. It was a force to be reckoned with because it was cold and heartless, destroying people from all walks of life. There was no match for its cruelty. Once it came and left its victims breathless, there was not a thing anybody could do about it. And I couldn’t stand that. One of the first times I remember death making its stage appearance in my life was when it took my best friend, James, in the fourth grade. He and his parents were coming back from his sister’s wedding one night. James boasted that he was going to be the ring bearer. It sounded like it was a man’s job. An important job. I envied him. Monday morning came, and I got up for school just like any other day. I went into the kitchen to eat whatever breakfast Momma had prepared. It didn’t matter what it was; if it came from Momma’s kitchen, I was eager to eat it. This time, however, I stopped in my tracks the moment I saw Momma and my older sister, Denise, sitting at the kitchen table. Something wasn’t right. Denise looked like she had been crying. But then again she did a lot of that. If you stared at her too long, she would run off crying. But the look on Momma’s face was what got me. She looked dazed. Her eyes didn’t look right. “Momma, what’s wrong?” I asked. “Where’s Dad?”
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She didn’t answer right off. Denise let fresh waterworks loose. Finally, Momma released a sigh. “Dad’s at work. Um, Brendan, could you . . . would you please sit down for a minute?” Even her voice didn’t sound right. More alarm bells went off. I sat down next to Momma. “Why is Denise crying, Momma?” “Brendan, something happened last night when James and his parents were coming back into town from his sister’s wedding.” Momma paused. I scooted around uncomfortably in my chair. Momma was taking too long. And Denise was kind of getting on my nerves. I had been thinking, too, about the math test I had that day. I wanted to do well because whoever had the highest grade would get two free tickets to the skating rink downtown. I already had my girl, Felicia Reynolds, picked out as the one I was going to ask to go with me. “Okay, what happened?” I questioned. I needed Momma to hurry up. “Brendan, James won’t be in school today,” Momma started. I knitted my eyebrows. “Why not?” I was disappointed because I had been waiting to hear how he’d done with the ring bearer’s job. I just knew he had dropped the ring but figured he’d never admit to it. “There was an accident . . . ” Momma stopped and looked at Denise, who was sobbing loudly into a paper towel. “Denise, go wash your face, please. The bus will be here in a few minutes.” I watched Denise get up and leave, but my mind was still on what Momma had just said. There was an accident. Momma turned to me. “Brendan, James and his parents were in an accident coming back from his sister’s wedding. Somehow his father lost control of the car, and it swerved into the other lane. A pickup was coming . . . ” Momma kept her voice low. I tried to make sense of Momma’s words. “They got hit?” Momma nodded.
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“So . . . James is in the hospital?” Momma didn’t nod at that question. “His parents are at St. Helen’s Hospital in critical condition,” she explained quietly instead. “Brendan, James died at the scene of the accident. The impact was too much.” I just watched her mouth, trying to comprehend if I had actually seen it move to form words that gave meaning to what couldn’t possibly be true. James died at the scene of the accident. “James is dead?” My voice was as low as hers. Momma nodded again. “You don’t have to go to school today. In fact, your whole class is excused from school.” “But I have a math test.” Momma frowned a little. “That’s been cancelled, baby. I spoke with your teacher early this morning. She’s the one who told me the news about the accident.” I just sat there. So did Momma. We both sat there that morning for about fifteen minutes in silence. Momma kept looking at me, holding my hand and rubbing my back. I think she thought I was in shock or something. Maybe I was. We went to James’ funeral five days later. His dad had a slight concussion and a broken arm. His mom was partially paralyzed from the waist down. They both looked pitiful. His dad kept wailing like a wounded bear. I winced every time he wailed because it seemed to come from within my own heart, tearing it into pieces. Before the family said a final goodbye, James’ classmates were invited to walk in a line to see him so we could say our goodbyes first. Nerdy Ginger Davidson kept turning around to look at me like she was waiting for me to do something. Mrs. Camp, my teacher, stepped beside me and patted my arm for a while. It was like she, too, was waiting for my reaction. Everyone knew James and I were best friends. When my turn came, I stopped in front of the gray casket and stared. James looked odd, as if he were in a deep sleep. I wanted to punch him in
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the arm. He always hated that. Soon I felt a presence. Without glancing up, I knew it was Dad. He knew me better than anyone else and probably thought I needed support while I stood there for the longest time just staring at James. “Son, you okay?” He put his arm around me. I didn’t answer. Instead, I continued to watch James to see if he would move. I stood there for at least a full minute, but he didn’t move at all. I frowned. Suddenly, everything became surreal. Mrs. Camp quickly herded the rest of the classmates to the sectioned-off seats that were reserved for us. That’s when I heard that wail again. It wasn’t until Dad picked me up to carry me out of the church that I realized the wailing was coming from me. Three years later death struck again when my dad’s mother had a stroke while weeding her garden. I had gotten pretty close to her when Dad moved her from Little Rock to Memphis to live near us after her husband, my paternal grandfather, passed away. I just remember being mad during her entire funeral. Three weeks after my grandmother’s passing, one of my good church buddies, Adam, had a seizure in his bedroom. I had just arrived at his house after he’d called to invite me over and was chatting with his mom a minute before going upstairs. By the time I found him, he was already gone. A few months later, when I was thirteen, I was left reeling like never before when a steel beam fell on my dad at the construction site where he worked. His leg was broken in several places and he was in the hospital four days before death took him from us. The doctors tried to intervene when Dad started showing signs of respiratory distress, but they weren’t quick enough to catch the pulmonary embolism that death used as the culprit to take him away. We were all in shock. Denise and I stayed out of school for two weeks. Momma was strong at Dad’s funeral. Denise was not. I was somewhere in between. We moved to Baton Rouge two years later. At fifteen I was already well schooled in the wrenching pain that death brought. Momma had
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been talking about her needing to get back to Baton Rouge to be with her dad ever since her mom died in her sleep some years earlier. By then, Granddaddy was the only grandparent Denise and I had left. Denise transferred from the University of Memphis to Louisiana State University to be near us. She said she didn’t mind. I actually didn’t want to leave Memphis at first, but after a while I got used to the fact that we were really moving. I didn’t know my grandparents in Baton Rouge all that well because I only saw them a few times growing up, but when we moved in with Granddaddy, he and I seemed to really hit it off. I loved to hear him speak. He spoke English and French, sometimes mixed with Creole, and his accent warmed my heart. Neither Momma nor her two older brothers learned to speak French. They just stuck to the English their mother spoke. Granddaddy and I talked all the time about everything. I even picked up a little French. He taught me a lot, and over time, I understood pretty much everything he said if he didn’t speak too rapidly. But if he ever got upset, which wasn’t often, he would start up like a whirlwind. I had to sit those times out then because I couldn’t keep up with what he was saying. “He got that from his mother,” Momma told me once. “I was about six when she died, but she always looked like she had fire in her eyes.” Granddaddy’s mother was from a French Caribbean island called Martinique. She spoke only French until she got to America. From what I understand, she was as wild as anything. She moved to Baton Rouge when she was eighteen and married the first man who said hello to her. When she got involved with some sect that practiced voodoo, her husband disappeared one day and never came back. Left her with three kids. Granddaddy was the oldest. Not long after we moved to Baton Rouge, Granddaddy told me about a missionary who came to their house to speak with his mom. The missionary lived in the area near their village and had heard about her husband leaving them. He wanted to know if they needed assistance with anything because the Church would be glad to help. His mom slammed the door in the missionary’s face. The next day the man came back again with the same
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inquiry. His mom threatened to put a curse on him if he came back again. The man came back the next day with a Bible and two huge sacks of groceries. He knocked and left everything at the door. The Bible collected dust, but Granddaddy said they all ate good on the food for at least three weeks. He said he was curious about the book, but he didn’t dare touch it. He just wondered why his mom never threw it away. Granddaddy told me that one day word got around that a village child was extremely ill. A rattlesnake got him while he was getting ingredients together for some potion someone was making. Several sect leaders in the village tried to revive him, but no chants, spices or blood-soaked chickens helped the boy. He died shortly after he was bitten. The same missionary came up the road just as the boy’s funeral was taking place. Granddaddy said his mom started cursing up a storm in French when she saw him, but the missionary walked right up to the people and asked for their attention. Without apology, he said that he was sent by the Lord Jesus Christ to tell them that if they would believe in Jesus’ message of salvation, then they would have eternal life in Heaven. Granddaddy told me that he stood as still as a statue, his eyes wide. It was the first time he’d heard anything like that, and he didn’t know what to think. He said he could feel his mother gearing up again in anger, but because the deceased boy’s parents weren’t making a fuss, she kept quiet. No one spoke. Most of the villagers could speak and understand English, but the man repeated what he said in French just in case. Still, there was no response from the crowd. The missionary walked to the dead boy lying on a blanket and stood over him. “Get away from him,” the boy’s mother finally croaked out. Dead bodies were sacred; only ordained leaders of the sect could touch the dead. The missionary didn’t listen. Instead, he turned to the crowd and said, “Behold, the power of God.” Then he bent down, said a prayer over the boy and touched him briefly.
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Granddaddy told me that what he saw next made his hair stand straight up. The boy’s arm moved, and then one of his legs. The burial ointments and creams that heavily coated his body disappeared. After lying still a moment, the boy sat up and opened his eyes. He looked just like he had before he’d died. Everyone gasped. Even the village chief priestess, Rebecca, hadn’t been able to raise him. The people had never seen that kind of power and watched with amazement as the boy walked over to his screaming parents and hugged them. As the villagers stood gawking, the boy told them of a place he’d been called Heaven and how he met a Man dressed in light who smiled as bright as the sun and introduced himself as the Lord Jesus Christ. Granddaddy said he was twelve years old when his mom and several other people in the village, including the boy’s family, quit practicing voodoo and accepted the message of the Cross. He said that from that day forward his mom told everyone who would listen about the saving power of Jesus Christ. Granddaddy said she had fire in her eyes all right, but it was a different kind of fire from then on. As I grew into adulthood, I learned a lot of things from Granddaddy, especially things about the Lord. I had already accepted the Lord as Savior when I was younger, but I wasn’t as close to Him as Denise was. Momma and Dad had taught us both how to pray and made sure we had a good understanding of the Bible, but Granddaddy was the one who convinced me to get closer to Jesus—to really get to know Him. At his urging, I did just that and began to experience a profound depth in my relationship with the Lord. Intimacy with Him and my conversations with Granddaddy over the years changed me. My entire life turned around for the better. So the day we found out that Granddaddy had cancer, I was not afraid of death, even though it had been my nemesis for a long time. “Death has no power over God,” Granddaddy would always say. Nothing did, and I believed that. I just kept whispering those words repeatedly, even though I saw Granddaddy getting weaker and weaker.
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Death has no power over God. I would sit in his hospital room, hold his hand while he slipped in and out of consciousness, and I’d whisper that phrase over and over. Death has no power over God. He had been unconscious for a few days, but one day he suddenly opened his eyes. Momma had taken a break to go get coffee and call her brothers. Denise took a job in Atlanta when she finished college and was flying back to Baton Rouge to see Granddaddy. I had just turned twenty then and was a sophomore at Louisiana State University. We were on spring break, and I came back home from my dorm to be closer to Granddaddy. I was the only one there when he opened his eyes and called my name. “Brendan?” His accented voice was strong and clear. I raced over from the window and took a seat by his bed. “Granddaddy! You’re awake! Did you call me?” “Oui.” He licked his lips. “This is it.” I frowned. “What?” He managed a smile. I knew it was for my sake. “This is it. It won’t be much longer.” I kept my frown. “No! Remember? Death has no power over God.” He kept his smile. “No, it doesn’t, but you have to understand that this is my time.” “Granddaddy, no! You still have a ways to go. We have to stick together.” I tried to keep my voice from breaking. “Without you, you know Momma and Denise won’t do anything but hover over me. And Denise will find a way to do that from way over in Atlanta.” He laughed softly. “Your mother and Denise want what’s best for you. I do, too, Brendan. So does the Lord.” “Then He needs to let you stay with me.” Granddaddy sobered and then sighed a little. “Brendan, you’re a grown man now. And you have understanding in you that’s not from this world, but you just don’t know it yet. You will, though, Brendan. You will know
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it.” He closed his eyes and said again softly, “This is it. It won’t be much longer.” I stared at him. The man who told me over and over that death has no power over God was lying there in defeat—just giving up. “Granddaddy, we can fight this.” He shook his head. “Non.” “Pourquoi pas?” I asked angrily. I knew I couldn’t keep up with him, but I was ready to battle him in his language if I had to. I guess I already knew why he wasn’t fighting the cancer, but I didn’t want to accept it. Granddaddy kept his eyes closed and mumbled, “Je sais que tu ne comprends pas, Brendan.” “Non, je ne comprends pas!” I balled my fists and lightly smacked the bed. You’re right, Granddaddy, I don’t understand!” My voice was a whisper. “This makes no sense to me—not when I know you don’t have to go through this!” He didn’t open his eyes. “I know this is hard for you to understand, Brendan. And, really, for me to think about leaving you, that is . . . ” He sighed again. “Très difficle pour moi.” “It’s hard for me too, Granddaddy, so why not just let the doctors help you?” I begged. “Dr. Cedars said chemo could help. You have to try it because you can’t just lay there and die!” “Brendan!” Granddaddy opened his ebony black eyes then. They seemed to shoot bolts of lightening as he stared straight at me. His tone made me sit up. When he called my name like that, I knew the deal. Shut it. “Brendan.” His eyes and voice grew softer. “When I found out I had cancer, the first thing I did was pray. Fear entered my heart, and I was afraid. I asked the Lord what he wanted me to do about this. I asked Him what His will was for me.” I frowned again. I knew exactly what he was going to say. “After a week of praying, do you know what I heard Him say, Brendan? Clear as a bell, I heard Him say, ‘Come, rest in Me and live forever.’”
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I shook my head. He’d told us all of that before, but I didn’t like it because it meant that he would have to leave. “But why would He say that, Granddaddy? He can heal you.” “Oui, c’est vrai. Yes, He can, Brendan, and don’t you ever forget that. Even when they put me in that ground, don’t you ever forget that He can still heal.” “Then why won’t He do it for you? I’m sick of this!” I folded my arms and glared at the floor. The room was quiet for a moment. I looked up. Granddaddy was staring at me. He looked determined. “Fermez la porte.” I got up to close the door to his room like he wanted. Then I sat down and glared at the floor again. I was trying not to lose it. “Non, regardez-moi.” I wanted to keep my eyes down, but I forced myself to look at him. Suddenly he looked stronger. More focused. Even some color returned to his face. “The Lord is sovereign, Brendan. And since the day I gave my life to Him, I’ve tried to seek His will in everything. Yes, it hurt when your grandmother took her last breath by my side as she slept and left without my even knowing it was happening. I didn’t like it. Still don’t. But even though I don’t understand everything in life, son, I do know that death is not final. It’s actually just the door that leads us into a world where we will live for all eternity. Brendan, don’t ever think that death has the last say. Remember that death has to loosen its grip if the Lord says so. That’s the truth, plain and simple. I’ve seen it for myself with my own two eyes.” I thought about the little boy who had been raised from the dead. A funny thought leaped into my mind. Granddaddy smiled slightly. “But I won’t be coming back, Brendan.” I avoided Granddaddy’s eyes as the thought vanished. “This sickness is not from the Lord for me, Brendan. But I have accepted His will as a result of it because there is a purpose for everything. Even
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death has a purpose. That’s why we must seek His wisdom and turn to Him for His promise of comfort. I have done that, and I know the Lord’s will for me in my situation. Don’t be angry at Him because He never told me not to fight this cancer. That was my choice, son, my choice. And now I’m ready to rest in Him.” I closed my eyes, but Granddaddy kept talking as strong as ever. “I know death looks big and powerful and even scary to you,” he said. “It comes slow, it comes fast, and it can come when we least expect it. But know this, Brendan. Even though I can see its strength and feel its grip, death doesn’t scare me. I may be staring it straight in the face right now, but I can still tell you with absolute confidence that death has no power over God.” Granddaddy died two days later.
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