Lessons from my brother's heart

Hearts count for the month of love, right?  This isn't so much a tender topic for me as it is a sacred one.   Even so, my brother's heart is what I'm feeling prompted to write about tonight.   

Samuel, my brother farthest to the left, was born with just one ventricle of his heart.  This wasn't the only news that the doctors delivered to my parents as he was delivered.  Surprise!  My mom was told to keep pushing because another baby needed to come out.  BIG, and yes, a little bit hilarious to me, of a surprise.  I can't even imagine.  My parents took home identical twin baby boys to one crib, one car seat, one stroller.  Well, actually, it was just one baby they took home to the one crib because Samuel was rushed right away to emergency surgery.   Anyway, miracles miracles, Samuel came home weeks later and grew up for the next seven years right along with the rest of the gang.  And we have thousands of precious pictures just like this one to remember it all.  Grandad and Jarum, thank you.

There are countless things that have touched me about Samuel's life.  Someday I will record them.  But this next story never fails to give me strength when I need something to hold on to.

Two months before Samuel was to turn eight years old, he was scheduled for another heart surgery.  My understanding of the details of this are limited (I was only four years old at the time), but from what I've gathered, surgeons were going to reconstruct his heart in a way so it could sustain him through adulthood.  It was either this procedure, or a heart transplant.   

The week of the scheduled surgery arrived.  Everything lined up so perfectly.  It was a good time to pull Samuel out of school.  Work was taken off.  The specialized heart surgeons that had successfully performed this surgery many times before were available.  Grandparents had cleared their schedules so they could stay with the four of us kids at home while my parents went to Los Angeles to be with Samuel.  And then a day before the big day, Samuel got sick.  He had a fever.  My mom called the doctor.  They would not operate if he was sick.  The whole thing would have to be postponed if he was still sick on surgery day.  

Day of the surgery came.  Samuel was still sick.  He was given a blessing and my parents made the decision to pack up the car and see how things looked when they got to the children's hospital.  My mom tells this story as if it were yesterday.  The whole three hour drive, Samuel was laying down in the back seat of the car all feverish and achy.  Just as they took the off ramp that was minutes from the hospital, Samuel sat up as happy and healthy and unfeverish as a seven year old boy should be.  There was no sign of sickness anywhere on that sweet face of his.  This miracle was an absolute confirmation to my parents that this surgery needed to happen that day. 

And it did. 

And Samuel never woke up.

I question if I have it, if I'd have what my parents had, if I could see this as they saw it, the incredible blessing that Heavenly Father had given to them in allowing Samuel to get sick, and then be healed dramatically, and then die, all as a powerful and personal communication that everything was in the Lord's hands.  Of course this was still a horribly painful experience for them.  Of course they still grieved.  Of course they missed him terribly.  But because they chose to live by faith, Heavenly Father was able to give them peace and assurance during this extremely difficult time in a way that could be transferred in no other way but through living by faith. 

"Seek learning by faith."  That faith thing.  It's some pretty powerful stuff.  I guess I shouldn't cringe so much when I take a step into the darkness, 'cause really,  it's just a step closer to seeing the light, to feeling His peace, to being taught, to knowing He. Knows. All.