Catherine Marshall - To Live Again

CATHERINE MARSHALL

To Live Again by Catherine Marshall

Copyright 1957 Catherine Marshall

Copyright renewed 1985 Leonard E. LeSourd

Copyright 2013 Marshall-LeSourd, LLC

Published by Evergreen Farm, an imprint of Gilead Publishing, LLC

Wheaton, Illinois, USA.

www.gileadpublishing.com/evergreenfarm

Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Gilead Publishing, LLC/Evergreen Farm.

ISBN: 978-1-68370-181-1 (printed softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-68370-182-8 (ebook)

EPUB Edition

Cover design by Larry Taylor

Interior design by Beth Shagene

Ebook production by Book Genesis, Inc.

Crisis

O n the gray morning of January 25, 1949, my world caved in. At 8:15 a.m. my husbands tired and damaged heart stopped beating. Five minutes later the doctor called. The measured words coming through the telephone receiver were like physical blows from which I instinctively recoiled: Oh no! Not that! And then a deep breath, like that of a drowning person gulping for air: How? Why? Please tell me what happened!

The controlled voice on the other end of the phone went on with maddening deliberation, Dr. Marshall seemed to stand the ambulance trip to the hospital quite well. Sedation soon reduced the pain in his chest and arms. There was no immediate need for oxygen. The night nurse on the floor went by his room shortly before eight oclock this morning. Dr. Marshall seemed to be comfortablewas, in fact, sleeping. So the nurse didnt disturb him.

Meanwhile, I telephoned one of the nurses on his case during his first attack, and she had agreed to come. Shortly after eight she came on duty. It was she who found him. Dr. Marshall died in his sleepvery peacefully.

I found myself unable to speak. I was hanging on to the telephone receiver as if that small black instrument could hold me up.

Mrs. Marshall, do you want to come down to the hospital? the doctor asked. What order shall I give?

When I found my voice again, it sounded hollow, alien. Please... yes, Ill be right down. Dont let them move him... until I get there... please.

I assure you nothing at all will be disturbed. Mrs. Marshall, may I sayIm sorry.

How can real life seem more like a dream than any dream? What is reality? Life? Death? Who can tell? A whirling head, a furiously beating heart, unseeing eyes, unsteady legs must somehow walk on into the dream, to be enveloped by it, to feel its clamminess, to protest it. One must pick up life again, even though one feels as dead on the inside as a wound-up tin soldiermechanically setting one foot in front of the other.

At the moment when the telephone had rung, Peter John, our nine-year-old son, had been getting ready to leave for school. He had been standing nearby and had overheard my half of the conversation with the doctor. I had replaced the telephone on its cradle, had stood there for a moment as in a daze. Then suddenly I became aware of a small blond boy there in the hall, looking at me with uncomprehending blue eyes.

Almost instantly, two thoughts surged through mean intimation of what the news I had just heard meant for this little boys future and my own need to feel close to him. I knelt and impulsively pulled him into my arms.

Peter, the doctor told me that Daddy just died. There was no weeping in my voice; I was still too stunned. But Peter John burst into a flood of little-boy tears.

I knelt there holding him close, feeling the warmth of his body pressed against mine. He was quivering. Only once since babyhood had I ever seen Peter John tremble like that. The incident came back to me so vividly...

As an eight-year-old, Peter John had been away to summer camp for the first time. His father and I had received a letter from him written on ruled paper in his big, round, scrawly hand:

Dear Mummy and Daddy,

I am still very homesick. Could you come and take me home before Sunday? I would like it very much. If you cant would you please come and take me home Monday.

Love,

Peter

We had kept in touch with the counselors by telephone; Dont come, they had advised. Write your son, but stay away from him. This often happens. Hell get over it.

But he hadnt. The homesickness had gotten worse and worse. Then he had come down with a summer cold and had landed in sick bay.

Well go to see how he is, his father had conceded. But Catherine, weve got to be firm with Peterno soft stuff now. Hes got to grow up.

As soon as Peter John had seen his father in the infirmary door, he had leaped into his arms. The little figure in crumpled summer pajamas had clung around his fathers neck, his legs wound around him, the blond head buried in the broad shoulder. Sobbing and quiveringeven as he was now in my armshe had said, Ifif youlove meyoulltakeme home.

Love him? Who could have doubted it, watching that scene? The rugged-looking Scotsman, his curly hair a bit unruly... his blue-gray eyes moist... stroking the blond head with his big mechanics hand... his carefully mustered sternness melting like ice in the sun...

All right, Peter, he had said softly, the burr of his accent softened by emotion. I understand. Well take you home. But you are to stop crying.

And now, I thought as I held that same little boy in my arms, you will never again hear that voice or feel that hand.

As I knelt there, the front door opened. It was my brother, Bob, and his wife, Mary. I sat on the davenport in the living room beside Bob and repeated all that the doctor had said. Still there were no tears. The whole thing seemed utterly unreal. Peter dead! How could Peter be dead? Surely, God would somehow, someway, still intervene...

He was not to intervene in the way I hoped, but in quite another wayequally miraculous. Just how miraculous I was not to realize until much later. I was to be led by that Power outside myself into areas beyond my knowledge, along the path that leads through and out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. There would be rocky ledges, steep slopes, slippery places, many a fork in the road where a clear-cut decision would be required. I knew none of the trails: the Valley was untrodden country. Yet by sure steps I would be led through it. I was to discover the Lord as my Shepherdquite literally and in many practical ways.

As soon as I could get ready, Bob and Mary drove me to the hospital. At my request, they let me go alone to Peters room, but a young intern insisted on going up with me in the elevator. As the elevator ascended we were silent. Then, as we walked up to the closed door, the internhis eyes searching my faceasked, Mrs. Marshall, are you really all right? Are you quite sure that you want to go in there alone?

I nodded. He opened the door and stepped aside. Then I will wait for you here in the hall, he said. Call if you need me.

I was young, had looked on death only twice before. Yet one glance at the still form on the bed and I knew that the man I loved was not there.