Gabriel Carlson drifted into my life unexpectedly as a
mystery of God, and then disappeared – for just a little while at first – only
to miraculously and dramatically reappear.
Then, like sand through an hourglass he slipped away. This is the story of how God used Gabriel to
change my life, though he would say it is how God used me to save his.
The
stroke had stolen most of his words, but my brother still had the communicative
prowess to let it be known which foods were acceptable, or as is often the case
with the Seawel siblings, which foods are unacceptable. I was dispatched to the nearest Sonic to
Little Rock’s Baptist Hospital for an Arkansas staple – ice cream and a big
coke. Chester wanted with his Coke, a
Reese’s Blast with no funny stuff.
The
young man feigned offense, “Hey, Brother, you went to Sonic and ain’t bring me
nothin’?”
I laughed, then replied, “You should’ve asked me, I would
have been glad to.”
“I’m
just playin’ with ya, bro. I’m just
bored up in this joint.”
The matching navy blue clothing he had on looked to be
hospital scrubs, but he had a bandage in the crook of his non-tattooed arm so I
asked if he was a patient or an employee.
“Man,
this damn sickle cell.”
“Ah man, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t
be, we all got our cross to bear. I’m
sure you got yours.”
“You're and old soul wise beyond your years, huh?”
“I
ain’t gonna lie. Sickle cell done made
my body weak, but it’s made me strong in spirit.”
I flashed a knowing smile, but it was premature. I didn’t know. I hadn’t truly digested his words, but I was
chewing on them when until the elevator bell interrupted me at my floor. “I’m James by the way.”
“Bible
name. I knew you was saved.”
Laughing as I stepped off the elevator, I turned and asked
his name before the close of the door.
“Call
me Gabriel.”
“Like the angel,” I replied.
He beamed back at me with a kindred spirit smile as the metallic doors
of the elevator closed like the lid on a casket and transported my new friend away.
I
returned to the room with enough calories to power a Pontiac just as the techs
were about to begin some kind of supposedly therapeutic rigmarole. Their blank stares and silence induced the
intended discomfort in me that they desired, so after my brother appreciated my
handiwork of forbidding the whipped cream, I was dismissed. I snagged my hand-me-down paperback copy of
The Shack off the window sill and headed for the lobby.
With
my drink and book in hand, I found a somewhat cozy nook, that is, as
comfortable as a hospital waiting room can be.
An old grey gentleman sat slumped over, his head bobbing as he fought
out a nap, while his gum-smacking wife flipped through a glossy-covered women’s
magazine opening her juicy fruited mouth to lick a finger to turn each
page. Fox News was on mute, thank God
for the little things. I slurped my
drink, placed my feet on the chair across from me wondering if the old woman
would scold me with her eyes, but not looking up to check. Ahh, back to this story where God was a big
black woman. Normalcy.
Just as
I was settling comfortably back in to the story, I couldn’t help but notice in
my peripheral vision the young man, Gabriel, walk by. It was nothing spectacular, just the
recognition of my new acquaintance. But
he wouldn’t leave my mind. Thoughts
about anything or anybody at this juncture were as uninvited and as they were
annoying. Would it be too much to ask to
just escape into someone else’s world just for a chapter or two, I
wondered. The Shack is not a hard read,
but I found my eyes scanning the same passages repeatedly with no recollection
or comprehension whatsoever. The
Narrator in my head was ever louder and overpowered the words on the page. In my first attempt at Christian fiction, I
couldn’t concentrate. The Author of my
faith kept interrupting me. God can be
so inconsiderate that way. All I could
think about was Gabriel. I suddenly had
a burden to pray for him. The Holy
Spirit would not be dismissed. He was insistent that I pray for Gabriel.
So, I
prayed that guy up one side and down the other.
I pled the blood of Jesus over him, his family, his finances, his
health. I claimed favorite Bible verses
for him: Dear Lord, let no weapon formed against Gabriel prosper. Be his refuge and his strength. Guard and protect him from the evil one. Place a hedge of protection over him and
shield him from all harm. Let the fiery
darts of the enemy towards Gabriel be turned back on he who launched them. I thanked God for his life, and speaking
things that were not, as though they were, as Scripture teaches, I thanked God
for his health and well-being. I asked
the Lord to watch over him and to dispatch angels to protect him. Once I had begun praying, I couldn’t stop
until it was finished. This is difficult
to explain to those who haven’t walked with God like this, but I know this
sudden urge to pray for a stranger wasn’t of me. I was tired and wanted rest,
and as evidenced by my brother down the hall needing his own miracle I had my
own prayer priorities as well as a selfish will to just chill and relax. When the pressure to pray was lifted, only
then could I return to my book, the irony being lost on me at the time that it
was a story about a man learning to hear from God.
Later that evening I offered to give
Shelly, my sister-in-law, a break. Ever
the advocate, she felt she needed to stay close and keep watch on the hospital
staff and to make sure her husband was at least passably well-behaved. She took a few minutes to find some sweet tea
and use her cell phone to update family and check on her babies, and then she
came back and told me I should leave and see about them the next morning.
I was
staying at my friend Cameron’s place down in Riverdale in northern Little
Rock. From Baptist I could have taken
any number of the north-south routes that bisected midtown between the Wilbur
D. Mills Freeway and Cantrell Avenue. For
no particular reason that I could have identified at the time, I opted for
Mississippi Boulevard. The street was
not busy on this late, dark night. I
traversed the boulevard, cresting and descending the steep hills of Midtown,
paying no particular notice to the oncoming headlights, but exactly as the car
was directly beside me my ears were bombarded with an indistinguishable
combination of ominous noises. Checking
my rearview mirror as I reached the summit of the hill just nanoseconds
afterwards, I saw an explosion of lights as the car hit an electrical
pole. It spun around, flipping multiple
times until its final resting place where smoke hovered like ghosts in the
air. I called 9-1-1 and gave dispatch
the approximate address while I parked, and then ran to the scene. By this time a couple more cars had
approached as startled neighbors began appearing on their lawns wearing
nightclothes and surprised squint-eyed faces.
Nothing in my life had prepared me for what my eyes were about to
see. A light pole was snapped in half
while electrical wires were shooting out sparks as they whipped around
violently like snakes on fire. Perhaps
because I had witnessed this accident and thus somehow felt a part of it, and
no doubt because I was on a God-high, I didn’t have the hesitancy to approach
as did the gawkers from the other cars and the homeowners whose yards were now
playing host to general passersby and nosy neighbors. The movies do not exaggerate the hodgepodge
assortment of people from all walks of life who assemble from seemingly out of
nowhere in these moments. I dismissed a
voice from someone in a nearby yard who called out for me to stay back.
A
white guy was sprawled out on the pavement, his limbs twisted up under and
behind him crudely as if put together by a deranged doll-maker. His haphazardly arranged form conjured images
from a horror movie. As I drew near, I
noticed a girl running away through the bushes into the shadows of darkness,
painstakingly avoiding any light. My
attempt to comfort the man splayed out on the asphalt by assuring him that an
ambulance was on its way was welcomed. I
misled him to believe I could hear sirens approaching, hoping my lie would help
him to hold on just a little longer. He
wanted to know if his girlfriend was alright.
He wanted to know why he couldn’t move or feel his arms or legs. He wanted to know a good many things I was
ill-prepared to answer. His face was
frozen in stillness, his neck unable to turn.
When he looked up at me with his dilated pupils from under his upraised
eyebrows, my mind raced at the recognition of the surefire expressions of
shock. I felt I had to engage him
somehow. He readily agreed to allow me
pray for him, which is what we were doing when we sensed movement from the
overturned car followed by a frightened voice.
“Help! Somebody get me out of
here. Please help me.”
The voice was familiar.
It was from the elevator.
Gabriel. Oh, Lord, this is why
you had me pray. My heart sank thinking
of him stuck in the smoldering wreckage of the remains of this unrecognizable
car.
I
approached the mass of mangled metal and walked towards the smoke and broken
glass bracing myself for what condition I might find Gabriel. I talked him out of the car. He kicked the spider-webbed glass out of a backseat
window, then positioned himself headfirst to emerge from the dark and narrow
space. His face wore the innocent
expression of a newborn. He crawled, then stood and walked towards me. Amid the faces in the now-growing crowd he
identified me immediately as “the dude from the elevator.”
“How’d
you know to find me here, dude?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s
a God thang.”
I couldn't disagree with his declaration. We shook our heads in disbelief, and embraced
as he began audibly to process.
In stream of consciousness fashion he wondered aloud how the
car had wrecked, and then answering his own question remembered the wheels
locking up and brakes not working. He
wondered what had happened to the girl, how long he had been "out",
when had I shown up and just how, again, had I known to be there. By this time the first ambulance arrived and
the paramedics were tending to the man on the pavement and asking us to not
approach. Gabriel called reassurances
and promises to visit, but his friend was too deep in shock at this point to
respond.
“I
gotta call my momma.”
He looked at the ground and saw among various CD’s, DVDs's,
books, clothing, an odd assortment of canned goods, and millions of shards of
glass, the remnants of his cell phone.
“Man,
can I use your phone? I gotta call my
momma.”
Having
a mom of my own and knowing that Gabriel was shaken I made him promise me that
he would say to his mother slowly and calmly, “Mom, I’m okay” three times
before telling her of the accident. He
did so and the change in his demeanor was visible as he listened to his
mother’s voice of reassurance. He gave
his mother his location. Meanwhile, the
second set of paramedics beckoned him to them for his ambulance ride to the
ER. Childlike, Gabriel inquired as to
whether I could accompany him. When the lady gave him the “are you being
serious, right now?” face, I told Gabriel I would remain at the scene to talk
to his mother and would check up with him later. This satisfied him, and he was back to
Baptist.
A
newer model pick-up truck pulled up to the scene with a middle aged black man
at the wheel. He put his hazard lights
on, parked astraddle the curb, and introduced himself to a police officer. The woman riding passenger let her window
down and surveyed the scene with her eyes while she clasped both hands to her
chest. I walked up to her and introduced
myself to Gabriel’s mother, Ms. Robynne, who appeared very tired and weak under
her church lady hat. She was not who I
had imagined, though I was certainly not disappointed. She had just met two ambulances on the road
and assumed her baby was on one of them, so I reassured her that he was and
without a scratch. Naturally, she wanted
to know what had happened. Sensing that
she was a woman of faith, I asked her if I could start at the beginning.
I
shared with Ms. Robynne the unlikely story of how I had met her son earlier
that day, then how the Spirit had been relentless with me to pray for him. She cried the tears only a mother who has
fought spiritual battles on behalf of a child can cry. I felt so undeserving and self-aggrandizing
as I unfolded for her my version of the account until she stepped down out of
the truck and wrapped her arms around me and thanked me for being there and for
having “ears to hear." Like Gabriel
had been on the phone I was relieved by the soft and smooth yet definitive
voice of this strong woman.
“Listen to me. All my baby's
life, the devil has had a plan against him.
Honey, I’m talking car wrecks, medical issues, house fires, accidents,
more close calls and near misses than I care to remember. That’s why I’m not surprised to see you here,
dear brother. You don’t know how often
this has happened. God's got his eye on
my baby boy, and I thank you, honey, for knowing His voice. It was God who saved my baby, but he used
you. He used you.”
As
promised, I checked on Gabriel later that night in the ER. He had already been
released when I arrived, but he had not left as the waiting room had become
temporary headquarters for his support group.
He welcomed me into his circle.
His family and friends were celebrating his miracle, and praying for his
friend, who I learned was a down-on-his-luck regular at the video store where
Gabriel worked. Gabriel regularly
brought groceries from his church's pantry to the man and his girlfriend, and
sometimes as was the case this night if they waited around until close he would
take the carless couple home, wherever home might be any given night.
That
night leaving the ER I said my goodbyes, and never saw Gabriel face to face
again. We kept up on Facebook and
through a few phone calls we prayed together and discussed everything from
girls to God and other mysteries that have confounded men through the
ages. No Gabriel conversation was
complete without covering his two other passions, music and politics. Already a volunteer for local campaigns, had
he lived to complete his major he was hoping for a career in political science,
though having a side gig in music would have brought him much satisfaction.
Perhaps there is no gift in dying young and having the foreknowledge
thereof, but if there is an earthly silver lining before Heaven, then it must
be embracing the time one has left.
That’s what I saw Gabriel doing.
As only one who knows his days are numbered can, Gabriel knew the
precious value of time. He could no more
turn back his clock, than he could wind it up again. I believe he valued his hours and days more
than most. In being robbed of the
average twenty-something's perceived immortality, he was given a foretaste of
eternity. Alive to his spirit, he knew
his days with flesh and blood were numbered.
As a result, he was more free with tears and laughter and expressions of
affection to his friends and family. He
packed a lot of experience into his years, knowing that his days on earth were
numbered.
I
refuse to write or even think something so defeating as "Gabriel lost his
battle with sickle cell anemia”. I think
such obituaries and eulogies for a spiritual warrior like Gabriel are utter
bullshit. I think Gabriel kicked sickle
cell’s ass every day of his life, and that his last earthly breath was his
gateway to glory, his harbinger to heaven.
Maybe it’s easy for a distant survivor to say, one who still has breath
and skin and dates on a calendar and other things of this life, but I say
Gabriel didn’t lose a thing, but gained it all.
After all, it was Jesus (John 11: 25-26) who said, "I am the
resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he
dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe
this?" Gabriel did; Gabriel
believed.
I
don’t know why God’s presence was so tangible that day, yet one man became
paralyzed and died weeks later. I don’t
know why God showed me the power of intercessory prayer for a person I didn’t
even know, while my brother’s healing has come so gradually that fulfillment
thereof at this pace will last well into eternity. I don’t know why Gabriel came out of that car
unscratched, only to die a couple of years later. I don't know why Ms. Robynne died as a result
of the cancer she had fought for years, nor why her aged mother lost a beloved
child and a grandchild within the span of roughly a year. I don't know why I felt the presence of God
so strongly then, and yet find myself questioning my faith in Him on other
days.
Gabriel
wouldn't have known either, but the popular maxim of "God works in
mysterious ways" could not be ignored by either of us as our very
friendship was a result of something we knew to be more than a chance
encounter. Sometimes I futilely demand
answers, but today I'm comforted by the words of the old song: Farther along
we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why... Soon we will see our dear, loving Savior;
Then we will meet those gone on before us, Then we shall know and understand
why.
