Winks From God

My husband, Noel, cherished God, me, and basketball—in that order. Our romance began at a Christian college in California, where Noel relished playing ball. Then, during our senior year, a semi-pro basketball team in Germany chose Noel as their one-allowed foreign player. So we moved to Germany right after our honeymoon in late July, and I loved supporting him in this dream. On top of his salary, the team provided us with a modern one-bedroom apartment and a car.

After four years of enjoying life as a young married couple, we desired to have children. I’ll never forget the evening out at one of our favorite restaurants where I told Noel that I was pregnant. We were both so excited and began planning for our future with little ones. I knew that he would be a great dad.

While in the fourth month of pregnancy, early one morning, Noel left to go pray with our pastor. They were good friends; praying with friends often occurred in Noel’s life. Noel had a close relationship with God, which carried over into each relationship he had. Several hours passed. I worked in our bedroom alcove office. Absorbed in my work, a knock at the door startled me. When I opened the door, I stood face to face with two German police officers. “Do you own a blue Seat (pronounced say aut) with advertisements on the side?” I was confused but didn’t quickly jump to the worst-case scenario.

“Yes,” I calmly responded.

“It has been in an accident. The driver has red hair. Is that your husband?”  Fear rushed through me. Yes, that was my Noel.

I called my friend Theresa, who was working two hours away, to help translate the details of what had happened. She suggested I call our friend Jim to drive me to the hospital. I stared out the window during the drive, asking God to prepare me for what lay ahead. I noticed a large crane on the side of the road and hanging from the top; I saw Noel’s crushed car, with the top sawed off. The tears immediately began to flow. I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving a wreck that destroyed a car like that. I knew then that I might never see my husband again. How would I survive this life without him?

When we arrived at the hospital, a nurse handed me a clear plastic bag with Noel’s bloody clothes. He directed Jim and me upstairs and asked us to wait at the end of a long hallway. Jim and I hardly spoke a word to each other during the long wait. I was pleading with God to spare Noel’s life. At this point, neither of us had any idea of the extent of his injuries. Finally, after several hours, a doctor came and led me to his office. He pulled out a cigarette and, after the first puff, began to share the details. Noel had ruptured his spleen; they removed it. He had crushed his knee and his facial bones. They repaired his knee during the surgery but needed to wait until the swelling went down on his brain to repair his face surgically. The Doctor didn’t know if his brain was damaged or not. Noel had a long road of recovery ahead of him. “He has a sport body,” the Doctor said in his broken English. “He will play basketball again someday.”

I scrubbed up and put on a gown in order to enter the ICU. The moment I saw my husband, fear gripped my heart. His head was the size of a soccer ball, and they hadn’t cleaned the blood off him yet. Would he be the same man I married? Would he even recognize me when he woke up? Would I need to take care of him for the rest of my life? The questions flooded my mind. All I could do was pray and ask others to do the same.

Family flew in, but Noel still didn’t wake up. I stayed by his side as long as I was allowed, holding his hand, willing him to wake up. Every night around ten, they made us leave. First thing in the morning, I scrubbed up and returned to his side. Three days after the accident, it was Mother’s Day. Noel’s mom stood by his side. “Noel, can you feel all the love and support around you?” she asked. He slightly nodded his head to our amazement, our first sign of hope.

 I was astounded to find him sitting up in bed and alert the following day. There were doctors and nurses around him, so I couldn’t go near him. Our eyes connected. If he weren’t in such a fragile state, I would have jumped into his arms in the hospital bed. Instead, the confused look on his face prompted me to ask, “Do you know why you’re here?”

He shook his head. After I explained the details of the accident, he made gestures requesting a pencil and paper since the breathing tube prevented him from speaking.

The questions flowed from his pencil. “Where was I going? Driving home after praying with Bart. Was anyone else involved? You hit a truck, but the driver was not injured. Was I on the Autobahn? No, just on the street right outside our neighborhood.” I answered each one as they came, and he calmed down. For the next several days, he continued to get better each day. I began to have hope that he would recover and that life would eventually get back to the way it was before. Then, the feeling of having to survive life without him left.  

One day, we talked about our baby and wondered aloud. “Will it be a girl or a boy?”  We had chosen names early in my pregnancy. Indiana for a girl because Noel loved the state where he grew up. A boy we’d call Caleb because the name represented a strong faith. I prayed that our baby would have Noel’s vibrant red hair.

On the eighth day after the accident, I scrubbed, put on my gown, and walked into Noel’s hospital room. My spirit sunk to find him in a coma again. How could this be when the Doctor assured me of his recovery? I stayed by his side all day, pleading with God to wake him up. The Doctor never came in, the nurses rarely attended to him, and no one explained why he had deteriorated. The language barrier frustrated me when I tried to get answers. Jim had been in the hospital each day, praying, communicating with our friends, and always ready to help translate. “Jim, can you speak with the doctor in German to find out what is going on?” I asked him that night.

Our parents and my sister, Jan, left the hospital before I did and ate the meal that friends provided for us. When I got home, the phone rang almost immediately after I got there.

“Jill, you need to get the whole family and return to the hospital. I’ll explain when you get here.” Jim said. I drove us in a borrowed van. None of us spoke a word the whole way there. A nurse ushered us into an employee lounge; we waited two hours for the Doctor to come to talk to us. My prayers were prayers of desperation once again. Noel’s dad paced the room while the rest of us sat silently, waiting to hear whether Noel would survive the night.  

“Noel had a fall early this morning. It dislodged a blood clot that went to the main artery of his brain. We’ve tried to dissolve it, unsuccessfully. He is brain dead.” The Doctor’s words crushed my soul. How could this be? What happened to the guarantee that he would play basketball again someday? He informed us that they would wheel his gurney back into his ICU room, and we could come and say goodbye before they turned off the machines. In silence, we moved into his hospital room; I held his hand with one hand and ran my fingers through his hair with my other hand. His dad laid his ear on Noel’s chest and sobbed. The nurse turned the machines off, and we watched the love of my life take his final breath.

  The rhythm of the heart monitor became a thin straight line. “Noel!” I cried out as I knew he was leaving this life.

 “I am in control,” I knew the calm voice I heard was God’s. Yet everything felt out of control. I would never see life again in Noel’s gorgeous blue eyes, never hear his kind voice. All alone with a baby growing inside me, I wondered, “How will I survive?” I prayed that God would someday provide a spouse for our baby that would love him or her just like Noel loved me. I wanted so desperately for our love to carry on in some way.

After Noel’s death, alone in Jim’s and his wife, Denise’s home, my chest heaved as I tried to catch my breath between the tears, but in public, I was stoic. “You seem so strong,”  people would tell me. On the day of the Memorial Service, I sat in the front row of the small military chapel in Darmstadt, Germany, every seat around me filled in. Noel and I ministered with our church’s youth group, and two of the girls went to the stage. They started singing “Thank You” by Ray Boltz. I had never heard the song before.

“I dreamed I went to heaven. You were there with me,” they sang. The song lyrics painted word pictures of heaven. They were word pictures of several people coming up to Noel in heaven to thank him for how he had changed their life. At one point, the melody crescendoed with “one by one they came.” Each teenager stood up around the chapel and joined in the singing one at a time. The students thanked Noel with their melodic voices for the difference he made for them. Tears gushed out of my eyes.   

I had worked as the Regional Manager for several military bookstores during our time living in Germany. Noel and I traveled together all over Europe. Sometimes for work, sometimes for pleasure. When work took me to England, he came with me and went fishing during the day. We enjoyed our evenings together. One of our favorite things to do was go to Paris for the day. We often said, “What a great way to start a marriage!” Our love for each other grew as we created many beautiful memories, from our morning runs to our evening excursions exploring Europe. Living without him came as a crushing blow to my world.

In the days that followed the services, I chose to grieve by going to each place where Noel and I had made memories. God provided my college roommate, Jaime, to go to our alma mater with me. Established around a Montecito estate built in 1907, the serene campus surrounded us with the beauty of old architecture and tall, aged trees. Every step Jaime and I took echoed with memories. A professor passed us on the path. “I’m sorry for your loss; I’m praying for you.”  Several professors and administrators acknowledged my loss throughout our time on the campus. I couldn’t describe what the pain inside felt like; I knew they would each take a little of it from me if possible. Jaime graciously listened, remembered, and grieved with me, even though she knew the stories I shared with her from years before.

After Noel’s funeral in Indiana and my time at Westmont College, I returned to Europe to grieve, relinquish my job, and pack up our belongings. Four months later, I moved in with my parents in California. They and my sister fixed up my childhood room for Noel’s and my baby. Every week or so, while waiting for our baby to arrive, I would find a letter that my mom placed on my desk or receive a phone call from people who loved Noel and me. I found out later that nineteen of Noel’s college basketball teammates had all committed to caring for me for one month over the next nineteen months. They wrote letters, sent gifts, and called me. In addition, during his designated month, each man asked how he could pray for me and then let the other men know so they could pray as well.

We expected the baby to come in November and were shocked when my water broke one early October evening at home with my parents. They drove me to the hospital. Jaime and Jan arrived to be my birthing partners. Next to my hospital bed stood a framed 5×7 photo of Noel. A visual reminder to all of the father my baby would never know. Every nurse and Doctor in the hospital knew our story, and many crammed into my room just before our baby’s birth to root for us. The care brimming in their tear-filled eyes wrapped around me in comfort. The moment our baby arrived, I saw that beautiful red hair on our sweet Indiana. I sensed a “wink” from God, knowing that He cared about the little, seemingly insignificant details I requested of Him.

God walked with me through every step of my grief journey. A year and a half after Noel’s death, Greg, one of those faithful nineteen men that encouraged me, asked me to join him and others as Noel’s #32 jersey was retired at Westmont College. Walking on the beach in Santa Barbara after the ceremony with Greg felt strange but welcome. At the end of our time together, Greg nervously asked, “are you open to pursuing a relationship with me?”

“As long as you are serious and don’t plan on breaking my heart” I surprised him with my honesty and vulnerability. God brought me to a place in my healing to be open to loving another.   He answered the prayers that I thought were impossibilities. 

In her early 20s, Indiana met a young man of faith and integrity at a church Bible study where her Uncle Drue, Noel’s brother, was a pastor. Love blossomed as Indiana’s new friend drove 45 minutes each week with his sister to be in the Word and in the community.   As God would have it, that boy’s name is Caleb. I know that God had planned a “wink” of His love all along. The “wink” said, “I am in control, and I’ve got every little detail of your life in My hands.” I sensed God’s loving smile on that sunny August day when Greg walked Indiana down the aisle to meet her groom. Her beloved groom and our new son, Caleb. Caleb’s love for Indiana blesses my heart when I remember that prayer that I prayed at Noel’s deathbed. Each little “wink” is another reminder of God’s tender care for me.