Heaven Is for Real Read online

  born, we became a family. With a second child on the way, we could begin

  to see the outlines of the future—family portraits, a house fil ed with the

  joyful noise of childhood, two kids checking their stockings on Christmas

  morning. Then two months into the pregnancy, Sonja lost the baby, and our

  misty-edged dreams popped like soap bubbles. Grief consumed Sonja.

  The reality of a child lost, one we would never know. An empty space

  where there wasn’t one before.

  We were eager to try again, but we worried about whether we would be

  able to have another child, multiplying our misery. A few months later,

  Sonja became pregnant again. Her early prenatal checkups revealed a

  healthy, growing baby. Stil , we hung on a bit loosely, a little afraid to fal in

  love with this new child as we had the one we had lost. But forty weeks

  later, on May 19, 1999, Colton Todd Burpo arrived and we fel head over

  heels. For Sonja, this little boy was an even more special gift directly from

  the hand of a loving, heavenly Father.

  Now, as I watched her face above Colton’s pale form, I could see terrible

  questions forming in her mind: What are you doing, God? Are you going

  to take this child too?

  Colton’s face appeared pinched and pale, his face a tiny moon in the

  stark hal way. The shadows around his eyes had deepened into dark,

  purple hol ows. He wasn’t screaming anymore, or even crying. He was just

  . . . stil .

  Again it reminded me of those dying patients I had seen hovering on the

  threshold between earth and eternity. Tears fil ed my eyes, blurring the

  image of my son like rain on a windowpane. Sonja looked up at me, her

  own tears streaming. “I think this is it,” she said.

  EIGHT

  RAGING AT GOD

  Five minutes later, a white-coated man emerged from the imaging lab. I

  don’t remember his name, but I remember that his name tag said

  “Radiologist.”

  “Your son has a ruptured appendix,” he said. “He needs emergency

  surgery. They’re ready for you in surgical prep now. Fol ow me.”

  Astonished, Sonja and I fel in behind him. Heat surged in my temples. A

  burst appendix? Hadn’t the doctor in Imperial ruled that out?

  In the surgical prep room, Sonja laid Colton on a gurney, kissed his

  forehead, and stepped away as a nurse closed in with an IV bag and a

  needle. Immediately, Colton began to scream and thrash. I stood at my

  son’s head and held his shoulders down, trying to soothe him with my

  voice. Sonja returned to Colton’s side, crying openly as she kept trying to

  brace his left arm and leg with her body.

  When I looked up, the prep room was crowded with men and women in

  white coats and scrubs. “The surgeon is here,” one of them said, gently. “If

  you’l step out and talk with him, we’l take over in here.”

  Reluctantly, we stepped through the curtain, Colton screaming,

  “Pleeease, Daddy! Don’t go!”

  In the hal way, Dr. Timothy O’Hol eran waited for us. Dr. O’Hol eran was

  the doctor who had performed the mastectomy on me four months earlier.

  Now his features were set in grim horizontal lines.

  He didn’t waste words. “Colton’s appendix has ruptured. He’s not in

  good shape. We’re going to go in and try to clean him out.”

  On the other side of the curtain, Colton was stil screaming. “Daddy!

  Daaadd-eeee!”

  Gritting my teeth, I shut out the sound and tried to focus on the doctor.

  “We asked about a burst appendix in Imperial,” Sonja said. “They ruled it

  out.”

  My brain skipped over the past and looked toward the future, angling for

  hope. “How do you think he’l do?” I said.

  “We’ve got to go in and clean him out. We’l know more when we open

  him up.”

  The spaces between his words rang in my ears like alarm bel s as

  Colton’s screams rang down the hal s. In response to a direct question, the

  doctor had specifical y not given us any assurances. In fact, the only thing

  he had said about Colton was that he was in bad shape. My mind flashed

  back to the moment Sonja cal ed me in Greeley from Imperial to tel me

  Colton’s fever had broken, and that they were on their way. What had

  seemed like the end of a stomach flu had more likely been the first sign of

  a ruptured appendix. That meant poison had been fil ing our little boy’s

  bel y for five days. That tal y explained the shadow of death we saw on him

  now. And it explained why Dr. O’Hol eran had not offered us any hope.

  The doctor nodded toward the noise spil ing from the prep room. “I think

  it’l work better if we take him back to surgery and sedate him, then put in

  the IV.”

  He stepped over to the curtain and I heard him give the order. A few

  moments later, two nurses wheeled the gurney through the curtain, and I

  saw Colton writhing. He twisted his tiny form, turning his head until he

  locked onto me with his sunken eyes. “Daddy! Don’t let them take meeee!”

  Remember when I said pastors don’t have the luxury of losing it? I was

  about to lose it, and I had to get away. After talking to the doctor and then

  scribbling my name on what seemed to be hundreds of insurance forms,

  nearly running, I found a smal room with a door, ducked in, and slammed it

  shut behind me. My heart raced. I couldn’t get my breath. Desperation,

  anger, and frustration washed over me in waves that seemed to squeeze

  away my breath.

  When everybody’s freaking out, they al look to Dad— especial y when

  Dad’s a pastor. Now I was final y in a room where no one was looking at

  me, and I began raging at God.

  “Where are you? Is this how you treat your pastors?! Is it even worth it to

  serve you?”

  Back and forth, I paced the room, which seemed to close in on me,

  shrinking as surely as Colton’s options were shrinking. Over and over a

  single image assaulted me: Colton being wheeled away, his arms

  stretched out, screaming for me to save him.

  That’s when it hit me. We waited too long. I might never see my son

  alive again.

  Tears of rage flooded my eyes, spil ed onto my cheeks. “After the leg,

  the kidney stones, the mastectomy, this is how you’re going to let me

  celebrate the end of my time of testing?” I yel ed at God. “You’re going to

  take my son?”

  NINE

  MINUTES LIKE GLACIERS

  Fifteen minutes later, maybe more, I emerged from that room dry-eyed. It

  had been the first time I’d real y been alone since the whole ordeal began. I

  had wanted to be strong for Sonja, a husband strong for his wife. I found

  her in the waiting room, using her last drops of cel phone battery to cal

  friends and family. I hugged her and held her as she cried into my shirt until

  it stuck to my chest. I used what little battery was left on my cel phone to

  cal Terri, my secretary, who would in turn activate the prayer chain at

  church. This was not a ritual cal . I was desperate for prayer, desperate that

  other believers would bang on the gates of heaven and beg for the life of

  our son.

  Pastors are supposed to b
e unshakable pil ars of faith, right? But at that

  moment, my faith was hanging by a tattered thread and fraying fast. I

  thought of the times where the Scripture says that God answered the

  prayers, not of the sick or dying, but of the friends of the sick or dying—the

  paralytic, for example. It was when Jesus saw the faith of the man’s friends

  that he told the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”1 At that

  moment, I needed to borrow the strength and faith of some other believers.

  After I hung up with Terri, Sonja and I sat together and prayed, afraid to

  hope and afraid not to.

  Time dragged, the minutes moving at the speed of glaciers. Between

  muted conversations and smal talk, the waiting room ticked with a

  pregnant silence.

  Ninety minutes later, a female nurse in purple scrubs, a surgical mask

  dangling from her neck, stepped into the waiting room. “Is Colton’s father

  here?”

  The tone of her voice, and the fact that it was a nurse and not Dr.

  O’Hol eran, sent a surge of hope through my body.

  Maybe God is being gracious despite our stupidity. Maybe he’s going

  to give us another day, another chance.

  I stood. “I’m Colton’s dad.”

  “Mr. Burpo, can you come back? Colton’s out of surgery, but we can’t

  calm him down. He’s stil screaming, and he’s screaming for you.”

  When they were wheeling Colton away, I couldn’t bear his screams.

  Now, suddenly, I wanted to hear his screams more than I’d ever wanted to

  hear anything in my life. To me, they would be a beautiful sound.

  Sonja and I gathered up our things and fol owed the nurse back through

  the wide double doors that led to the surgical ward. We didn’t make it to

  the recovery room but met a pair of nurses wheeling Colton through the

  hal way on a gurney. He was alert, and I could tel he’d been looking for me.

  My first reaction was to try to get as close as I could to him; I think I

  would’ve climbed on the gurney with him if I hadn’t thought the nurses might

  feel a little put out.

  The nurses stopped long enough for Sonja and I each to plant a kiss on

  Colton’s little face, which stil looked pale and drawn. “Hey, buddy, how you

  doin’?” I said.

  “Hi, Mommy. Hi, Daddy.” The ghost of a smile warmed his face.

  The nurses got the gurney under way again, and a few minutes and an

  elevator ride later, Colton was settled into a narrow hospital room at the

  end of a long corridor. Sonja stepped out of the room for a moment to take

  care of some paperwork at the nurse’s station, and I stayed behind, sitting

  next to Colton’s bed in one of those mesh-covered rockers, drinking in my

  son’s aliveness.

  A smal child looks even smal er in a hospital bed built for grown-ups. At

  under forty pounds, Colton’s body barely raised the sheet. His feet reached

  no more than a third of the way down the bed. Dark rings stil circled his

  eyes, but it seemed to me that the blue of his eyes shone brighter than two

  hours before.

  “Daddy?” Colton looked at me earnestly.

  “What?”

  He gazed at me and didn’t move his eyes from mine.

  “Daddy, you know I almost died.”

  Fear gripped me. Where did he hear that?

  Had he overheard the medical staff talking? Had he heard something

  the surgical team said, despite the anesthesia? Because we certainly

  hadn’t said anything about his being close to death in front of him. Sonja

  and I had feared he was at the brink, had known it after we learned his

  appendix had been leaking poison into his system for five days. But we’d

  been very careful not to say anything in front of Colton that would scare him.

  My throat closed, the first sign of tears. Some people freak out when

  their teenagers want to talk about sex. If you think that’s tough, try talking to

  your preschooler about dying. Colton had been with me in nursing homes,

  places where people gave their loved ones permission to let go of life. I

  wasn’t about to give my son permission to quit. We weren’t out of the

  woods yet, and I didn’t want him to think that death was an option.

  I wil ed my voice to remain steady and smiled at my son. “You just think

  about getting better, okay, buddy?”

  “Okay, Daddy.”

  “We’re here with you al the way. We’re praying for you.” I changed the

  subject. “Now, what can we bring you? Do you want your action figures

  from home?”

  We hadn’t been in the room long when three members of our church

  board arrived at the hospital. We were so grateful for that. Sometimes I

  wonder, what do people do when they have no extended family and no

  church? In times of crisis, where does their support come from? Cassie

  stayed with Norma and Bryan in Imperial until my mother, Kay, could drive

  up from Ulysses, Kansas. Bryan’s extended family lives in North Platte, and

  they came to help us too. Our church gathering around us in the eye of the

  storm would change the way Sonja and I approached pastoral visitation in

  times of trial and grief. We were faithful about it before; now we’re militant.

  Soon, Sonja came back into the room and not long after that, Dr.

  O’Hol eran joined us. Colton lay quietly as the surgeon pul ed back the

  sheet to show us the incision site, a horizontal line across the right side of

  his tiny bel y. The wound was packed with blood-tinged gauze, and as he

  began to remove it, Colton whimpered a bit in fear. I don’t think he could

  feel it yet, since he was stil under the effects of the local anesthesia the

  surgical team had applied to the incision site.

  Colton’s insides were so contaminated with the poison of the ruptured

  appendix that Dr. O’Hol eran had decided it was best to leave his incision

  open so it could continue to drain.

  Now the doctor spread the wound slightly.

  “See that gray tissue?” he said. “That’s what happens to internal organs

  when there’s an infection. Colton’s not going to be able to leave the

  hospital until everything that’s gray in there turns pink.”

  A length of plastic tubing protruded from each side of Colton’s

  abdomen. At the end of each tube was what the doctor cal ed a “grenade.”

  Clear plastic in color, they did look a little like grenades, but they were

  actual y manual squeeze pumps. The next morning, Dr. O’Hol eran showed

  us how to squeeze the grenades to drain pus from Colton’s abdomen and

  then pack the opening with fresh gauze. For the next few days, Dr.

  O’Hol eran would arrive each morning to check the wound and pack the

  dressing. Colton screamed bloody murder during those visits and began to

  associate the doctor with everything bad that was happening to him.

  In the evenings, when the doctor wasn’t there, I had to drain the incision.

  Prior to the surgery, Sonja had been on puke patrol for nearly a week and

  since the surgery, at Colton’s bedside every minute. But draining the pus

  was gory work and, for her, a bridge too far. Besides, it took at least three

  adults to hold Colton down. So while I squeezed the grenades, Sonja

  helped two nurses hold him, Sonja
whispering soothing words while Colton

  screamed and screamed.

  TEN

  PRAYERS OF A MOST UNUSUAL KIND

  For another week after the emergency appendectomy, Colton continued to

  throw up, and we continued to pump poison out of his body twice a day