Early Sunday morning we received the call from the nurse on duty. Frank just passed. If you didn’t get to read about Frank last week you may want to check out:
Tuesdays with Morrie… Mondays with Frank and Life Lessons From Frank. Today I want to share my husband’s reflections on Frank’s death.
So the man went and washed and came back seeing!
I ONCE WAS BLIND – Daniel DeGarmo
I got the call at about 3:45am. Frank had died. I was not shocked. I was not sad. I was dead myself – dead tired. After calling some of his immediate family to pass on the news I laid there in bed just thinking about what it would be like to be Frank.
A little history first. Frank let me in a lot to his life before Christ. He was a rough dude. You didn’t get in his way and you didn’t do him wrong. He once told me that there was a lady who lived in Phoenix, AZ who started a rumor about him that was quite embarrassing and just wasn’t true. (One point about Frank real quick – he was far from a liar. More on that maybe one day later) So in response to her caustic words, Frank found a very large rock, had it crated up and sent it to her – COD. I don’t care who you are, that’s funny.
But that was Frank. Gambling, drinking, fighting, and fornicating Frank.Into his 60’s, Frank lost his wife of 40 years. Without hope and without Jesus, Frank began attempts to take his life. He told me about 3. His family confirmed 2. 120 Percocets and Bourbon – only to found the next morning 20-30 minutes before death. Then there was the final attempt – self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Surely that would kill a man. If you want to die, shoot yourself in the head. So he did. But for reasons that we now know, God spared his life yet again. This event, though, led him to be blind (and without the sense of smell for those of you who didn’t know that) for the rest of his life.
The love of your life is dead. You find no reason to live yourself so you commit to taking your own life – 3 times – without success. Now you’re sitting in group homes and nursing homes wasting away in complete despair. You’re completely blind…and I don’t mean your eyesight. So it was with Frank. Frank was blind and he could not see.
If you were to ask Frank, he would be the first to tell you, as he often reminded me, that he was glad to be blind. You see, his life of physical blindness constantly reminded him of his nearly 70 years of spiritual blindness.
For there came a day in June of 2007 where Frank met Jesus. He knew little, if nothing, about Jesus. So the Jesus story blew him away. For over 70 years he was searching to see, finding nothing but heartache, often masked with a temporary feeling of joy, but only ending in misery – still blind. So, in the 11th hour of his life, Frank finally died – with Christ.
Today, his corruptible body died and he is experience God’s promise of an incorruptible body – a body that needs not worry about blindness. Frank’s life can be summed up in this way – “He once was blind, but now he sees.”
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