At Peace With God

In 1972, my Dad wrote in the inside cover of a little prayer book from his communion from 1942 that “God did not create man. Man created God. But even so, one wonders with all that happens supernaturally in this world whether there is something after death.” My father answered that question in the positive by showing my mother, one compassionate doctor and nurse, and his sons that God did in fact create man.

The events leading up to my father’s passing and those after his passing gave me peace in the knowledge that my father is at peace with the Lord. My father was in a coma for two weeks before his passing. On April 22, 2012, my mother and I witnessed my father’s passing and both felt a sense of peace that can’t be fully described. Our loss was tempered by the knowledge that my father let us know that he was fine and that he was with the Lord.

On April 22, 2012, my mother and I were at my father’s bedside. I had brought my Bose system and was playing some of my father’s favorite music off of my Ipod. Antonio Carlos Jobim and saxophonist Stan Getz. As my father lay in the hospital bed, I noticed that his breathing rate was going down. I had minutes before gotten off the phone with my brother who had returned to Florida after being up for a week to see my dad and support my mother. I had given him an update and informed him that I might need his help once again. Dad was strong and “his vital numbers” were very good. Minutes later as my father’s breathing rate diminished, my mother and I moved closer to the bed and the events that happened affirmed our belief that there is a God, a Lord and Savior.

As the song Corcovado played my father’s breathing rate diminished, followed by his monitor going crazy and the visit of the intensive care unit doctor and nurse. The monitor which had been the window into how my father was doing went crazy. The top line of the monitor which described my father’s heart rhythm took over half of the monitor screen and become erratic. The doctor came into the room and asked whether I had touched any of the “leads” which were attached to my father’s chest. I said no. My mother hadn’t touched them either. He checked the leads and they were all properly attached. By that time, the nurse had arrived and she too checked the leads, traced the wire back to the monitor screen where it was attached, and tried to reset the monitor. Nothing worked. Both the doctor and nurse stated that they had never seen this before. The monitor looked like the sound waves from an Itunes sound wave but not with the big bars just the wavy lines. The Doctor said he was going to call the other physician on staff. As the second doctor entered the room, I looked back and saw his expression as if to say, “You called me over for this!” As I looked back at the monitor it had returned to normal. The heart wave was weaker but now back to its normal size. My father was sending us a sign and he did not want the second doctor in on the deal. The first doctor, compassionate, had come in on his day off to check on my Dad. The second doctor was far less compassionate not in his words but in the feeling one gets from non-verbal communication.

As the monitor returned to normal, my mother grabbed from her purse a small scapular which she placed on my father’s chest, one on each side of his collar bones. My father then took a deep breath and held it. As the song Corcovado ended, my father flat lined on the monitor, and he was gone. The sense of peace that enveloped me cannot be fully described in words. My crying for my Dad stopped. As my mother and I walked out of my father’s room, the nurses and staff who had seen me fighting for my dad to survive were in awe that I wasn’t freaking out. My Dad without a word had let me know that he was a peace with the Lord and that in fact “God did create man”.

My brother since my father’s passing has had dreams where he has had conversations with my father. My father told him to look up a song by Glenn Campbell entitled “Friends” which in little over two minutes captures what my father was to us. At my father’s funeral, I had my father’s signature last song from his musical band career, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” by Glenn Campbell played by a saxophone player. Before the song finished, my Dad’s coffin reached the exit door out of the church. One of the two side by side doors was locked, it took until the song finished before it was unlocked to provide enough for the coffin to get through. Per the funeral director, that door has never been locked before in a funeral service. My father wanted the song to finish before he left. The song “Friends” isn’t on the album that “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” is on. Neither my brother or I were aware of the song until my brother’s dream.

Corcovado I had always thought was a place in Brazil because it was a Antonio Carlos Jobim song. The song isn’t a religious song so I didn’t think much of the song except that it now meant something special to me. I looked “Corcovado Stan Getz” and found the song and some YouTube videos. After my father’s funeral, my curiosity got me exploring a little further with where Corcovado was in Brazil and it was then that I learned that it was the mountain top where Christ the Redeemer’s monument stands atop with his hands outstretched overlooking Rio de Janeiro. Another symbol from my father to let us know it’s ok, there is a God, and my father is with him in peace. The iconic symbol of Brazil now had a much deeper meaning. It was finished a dedicated the year my father was born.

I share the above with you because it is important for the world to know that God exists and that if you’ve lost a love one you should take solace in the knowledge that they are at peace. Do God’s work everyday. As one of my client’s is fond of saying, “Life is Good. God is Great.”

John M. Pinho