Chapter 9: Pulling the Plug

“Do you want to go back?” I asked Frank.

I could see he was in a great angst the likes of what Jesus of Nazareth must have gone through in the Garden of Gethsemane when he actually sweat drops of his blood on the earth.

“You love Them, Frank Li,” my wife his latest Inspiring One said, “Love them also!”

Frank screamed a loud cry in his spirit which was all he really had now and neither me nor my wife knew what it meant. To us it could go either way.

A moment later Frank's mother sensed he was in great fear and anxiety and she thought he was being tortured in his spirit there at Sanford Hospital in Bemidji. Then she rose and walked to the respirator, looked at the Electroencephalogram, saw the flat lines one more time. Then tears began to come to her eyes, but she wiped them away with here left hand and licked them from the back of her hand. And we were afraid his scream which only Their Spirit knew what it meant had reached her somehow or that They had decided to let him die.

It was all I could do to keep from crying myself and my wife had all she could do to keep form stimulating his brain. But even I didn't know what she had in mind. Would she stimulate it to retreat to a complete corpse no longer knowing that even his spirit existed or that he had a decision to make for the affirmative. Then she looked at me and I shook my head.

“Leave it to God,” I said, thinking I knew he would die even in his spirit and we would not be able to bring him back this time.

She relaxed her spirit and walked to me and hugged me tightly, sensing my tension as I sensed hers. Then we were still and waited upon God. And They? Were They waiting for him to end his pain on his own? Were They going to end it? So I looked to his writer and saw him pounding on the keyboard of his little laptop, writing all this as it happened.

Then Anda Li reached her hand out for the cord to the respirator where it plugged into the wall. And my heart went out to her. She knew. Somehow she knew! She didn't even go to church or pretend to know God. How could she know?

“I sorry, Frankie,” she said, “I can't watch you suffer like that!”

And she pulled the plug, looked at the EEG it was still just flat lines. Then I notice the monitor that registered his vitals. They were weak but still there! His brain was keeping him alive on its own! He was still in a coma, but his body was alive as his brain stem registered weak patterns, but patterns just the same.

My face was like a stone under a stream as tears flooded over it. I tried to look at my wife but her face was pressed so hard to mine I couldn't get a look at it. So, I put my hand up to her face and realized we were both crying and crying a lot of tears which mingled on our faces just before we heard another sound.

“You know I will! If there's no other way for me to join You where You live?” as his pain continued though he spoke so softly both my wife and I could barely receive it.

Anda Li couldn't believe her eyes when finally she thought to look at the other monitor and collapsed sobbing on his body on the hospital bed and seemed to be laughing instead of crying.

“It is There will, Frank,” my wife said to Frank Li's spirit.

I could sense his attentions shift to me, so I said, “It's true, Frank Li,” amazed it had touched me so much.

Then he retreated to the first dimension because he was too weak to think, so me and my wife both stimulated his brain to strengthen his spirit and in a little bit we had managed just barely to keep his spirit from vanishing on its own anyway and didn't have to rely on Them to return him to us. Then I looked directly at the Light and knew we had done the right thing, the loving thing; the Godly thing. And I was filled with joy as my wife looked at Him and He nodded in her direction.

“Thank You!” she said and collapsed into my arms and I nearly collapsed too, but somehow bore her weight though it was extremely difficult for me to do.

“I will!” Frank said, “I love Them enough to allow my spirit to vanish right now, if it is Their will!” But he was moved to a great sadness. “I always have,” he said, “How did you know?”

“He didn't,” my wife said for me, “He has the greatest amount of faith I have ever seen among us. That's why we are still together and have always been together since They made us.”

“How can I get that kind of faith?” Frank asked.

“You can't,” my wife said.

“I don't have any choice in it,” I added as she smiled, “It's who I am and what I'm made of.”

Just then a nurse came into Frank Li's hospital room and seeing Anda lying on her son she went straight to her thinking her son had died. Then she quickly checked the monitor that measured his vitals. Her jaw dropped! His vitals were not normal! What was wrong with the machine? She checked all the connections. They were perfect. Then she checked the EEG. It was still the familiar flat lines. There was no sign of any brain activity at all on it. So she checked the plug, in the outlet and understood. The respirator was not working. He was alive on his own power. Then she started to plug it back in, but looked at Frank Li's mother and straightened up.

“Did you unplug it?” she asked in voice overly thick with compassion.

Anda Li looked at her in horror and then nodded.

Then the nurse began to bend down, but looked at the monitor registering his vitals and changed her mind. Then she went to his mother and hugged her and ushered her to a chair thinking, 'How lucky can you get? She might have been tried for murdering her own son!'

“It's alright Mrs. Li,” she said instead, “He's alive!” But looking at the monitor again she said, “And he's doing just fine!”

Anda looked at the EEG expecting he had recovered. And then lowered her head and looked very weary again to see the flat lines were yet there.

The nurse understood at once.

“His body is alive, Ma'am! That's a good sign! He's just in a very deep coma. The part of his brain that keeps his body alive is working just fine. He-he may even be thinking just not enough to register on the graph yet. It's a very good sign!”

Frank's mother rose from her chair and took Frank's hands in hers and looked in his lifeless face and said, “That God!”

“Yes, thank God!” the nurse said.