Dave Berry

We lost Dave tonight.  Here's the email Daddy sent out earlier:

This afternoon, Dave's sons felt strongly that he would pass away tonight.

We went to the hospice today - I got there at 7:15 or so, and met with our immediate family:  my parents, my sister, and her three kids.  That was it in the room.

My dad was thanking me for bringing up the concept of forgiveness earlier, as apparently earlier the entire group had made peace with Dave, letting him know they forgave him for any incidents along the way, but also letting him know how much they love him.  

We were there by his bedside, just talking as always.  The entire time, his breathing was labored - short, hard breaths.

Our conversation veered to events from as many as eight years ago, about forgiveness again, and that's when my sister noticed that he had stopped breathing - his breaths were sporadic, and then suddenly, just as it had all of our attention, the breathing had stopped completely.

The time was 7:50.  It was as if he was waiting for all of us to be together one last time.  We're a small family, and these sorts of gatherings are what we do several times each year.  And here we were again for one last time.

Dave's oldest son and his wife Shain jumped up to his side, and the oldest then went to get a nurse.  She came in, listened for a heartbeat, and told us all he's almost gone.  It was time to share our love, and give him our last messages.

His sons told him how much they loved him.  My mother told him she'd see him again in heaven someday, already weeping.  The oldest was already crying, although the other two siblings were silent, probably in the same frame of mind as myself:  is this for real?  How could this have happened?

The nurse pronounced him dead at 8:01.


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Tomorrow, I'll need a day off, I think.  I am going to the funeral home to help cover the expenses of a cremation, and death certificate and so forth.  My dad was calling different funeral homes tonight, trying to get the most affordable place he could.  It is amazing the salesmanship that you have to endure when your loved one just passed - it just seems so uncomfortable to me to try and sell all of these funeral perks to a person who just faced the most horrible tragedy of their life.

Dave was a good guy.  He wasn't perfect, but none of us are, of course.  I will remember him for being so amazingly bold with his faith.  He was a guy who could walk up to complete strangers and start telling them about Jesus.  I'm so amazingly withdrawn, the polar opposite of that.  Dave was the type of guy that would pray a three-minute message in the middle of a public restaurant, thanking God before everyone at O'Charley's or wherever.  He went to Rhema with Shain in the 90's, and that's when heathen David (me) went to visit the newly married couple in Oklahoma.  They were showing me Jessie Duplantis videos, and praying for me in secret, the sinner that I was.  Since when did I become the sinner in the family?

I never had a dramatic comeback to the fold, but I did start going to church again soon after.

Dave started a small church when he got back - that was his dream.  He wanted to be a pastor.  My friend Chad and I helped him set up, and followed him from week to week, part of a faithful congregation that was made up of me, Chad, and all the people above in that room tonight.  We worked hard, but it just didn't expand beyond that small congregation.  Still, there is a purpose to everything that God lines up.  I was looking for a new church after that, and it was the early 90's.  The next one I would go to is the one I still go to.

Dave found other jobs afterwards, and one the family suspects might be the cause of this:  a pesticide company.  Did he use those chemicals correctly?  We'll never know the cause, as no one will ever know the cause of all the cancer in the world.  It is a terrible thing.

Dave was always into sports.  Therefore, he had absolutely nothing in common with the rest of us.  Seriously, he would want to talk about college football, and we would be doing our Yoda impersonations.  Still, we found common ground in our Christianity, and of course our politics, which he was always quick to bring up at the big family meals, despite the contrary leanings of our grandmother.  

These last years, the Dave I knew was buried in work.  With three kids, he did his best, frequently juggling two jobs to make ends meet.  He worked long hours, and missed out on a few family occasions along the way, due to his busy schedule.

It was around this time last year that he found himself too busy to go to a doctor.  But the symptoms kept getting stronger.  He was a young guy, so what could it have been?  Digestive troubles?  Allergies?  A food intolerance?  Something with one of those organs inside?  Whatever it was, it didn't line up with God's word.  And that's the way it was, having been to those church schools of Oklahoma, those 'name it and claim it' sort of places.  He had such faith, again, something bigger and deeper sometimes than I ever had.

And yet by Easter, it was apparent something was really wrong, and he needed to really see a doctor.  But by that time, it was probably already too late.

But what is too late?  To God, that is?  We believed, we prayed, and we hoped.  This is the sort of thing that Zena made it through, and had a miracle even this past summer.  So Dave would make it through also, and things would be great.

He looked terrible Christmas Eve.  That was the moment we realized that everything wasn't going according to plan.  Just a few weeks before that, he lost his job - and he was told he'd be taking chemotherapy for the rest of his life.  

He just gave up.  And none of us have been in his shoes, so we can't point fingers or judge.  We could only pray for God's will, and that Dave would find peace.

I think he found that peace tonight.  I know, as I looked at his body that Dave was no longer in it.  I've heard stories about spirits floating out, looking down at themselves and around the room before going off to heaven.  Perhaps he was looking at us, looking down upon what used to be his mortal shell.  At that point, I strangely thought this, and was no longer looking at his body myself.  I was looking up and around, and letting him know that his family is in good hands.  We'll take care of those three kids.  We'll take care of his wife.  God's got this here, and He's got you now.  

We'll see you soon enough, Dave.