My Journey to Heaven: What I Saw and How It Changed My Life (10 page)

At that moment, I caught sight of a good friend of mine, Paul, off in the distance to the left, about a half a mile away. In life, he and I had played many games of tennis together, and he had been a spiritual giant in my life. He was in his middle sixties when he died of acute leukemia. In a bitter twist of irony, Paul died in the same hospital I was a patient in while I was there for my insulinoma. We both went to heaven, but I came back. He’s still there. Lucky Paul!

Paul was one of those guys who was just excellent with details. He and I served on many church councils and committees together, and I looked up to him for his tremendous faith. Paul had more trust in God than anyone I knew. He would step out in faith, sometimes without a job, and God would always come through for him.

The last time I saw Paul, he and I both decided to have our cars serviced on the same day at the Cadillac dealership. We sat and talked a long time as we waited for our cars to be worked on. He told me he had had some tests run, as he wasn’t feeling real well. Even then, Paul had a suspicion that something was wrong.

He was right. After that chance meeting, Ruth and I drove to Florida for the winter and I never saw him alive again. (Of course, when I saw him in heaven, he was more alive than ever.) Friends reported to us long distance how much he suffered back home in Michigan. Acute onset leukemia is just like it sounds: dire, and sets in fast. Everyone told me that Paul looked terrible before he died. In his prime, Paul was around 6
′
3
″
, 230–40 pounds, with the kind of belly that sent a clear message: this guy does not like to miss a meal. But if he weighed 140 pounds when he died, he was lucky. He was skinny to the point of being emaciated, like so many cancer patients are in their last days. Once he was admitted to the hospital, he never left. Paul went downhill fast, sleeping all the time and floating in and out of consciousness. I was sad to hear that my old friend had died such a difficult death.

I don’t think my eyes could have gotten any wider the entire time I was in heaven, and seeing Paul was just one of many unbelievable sights. He too was hale and hearty—my big, brawny friend was back to his old self, roughly 230 pounds. Those who knew him had one question when they heard I had seen him on the other side: Did Paul still have that Santa Claus belly?

And you know what? He did!

Just seconds after I absorbed the fact that I was seeing Paul with my own two eyes, I spotted another friend, Norm, about six feet away from Paul. (Paul and Norm were friends, yet it didn’t seem like they were walking together, at least not at that particular moment.) Norm was also a fine Christian man and devoted church leader. He was also a businessman, like Paul, and I very much appreciated Norm’s and Paul’s understanding of what it’s like being a Christian in the business world.

Norm had been a dedicated golfer and a man who loved to fish. Nothing made Norm smile more than a boat ride on Lake Michigan, casting his fishing rod and reeling in the salmon, one by one.

Both of my friends were prayer warriors, and we had spent many hours praying together. I’m not sure if this is why God chose these two guys for me to see—they were significant to me and my spiritual life.

Everyone I saw had been influential in shaping my life in some way.

Sad to say, Norm had also fallen victim to cancer, and he too died a painful and agonizing death, his weight falling drastically. Those once burly arms that could hoist the biggest salmon out of the lake shriveled down to wasted and bony twigs. He died two months before my trip to heaven.

Now, as I gawked at him and Paul, I could only shake my head in awe. Norm was his same sturdy, strong self. Both of those guys looked as if they had never been sick a day in their lives. Each of them had their full heads of hair back, and they were wearing leisure clothes, the kind of clothes they might have worn on the golf course or out for dinner with their wives.

Both of my friends saw me, and their eyes lit up with recognition, their faces split into grins as they too waved for me to come inside the gate. (“What do you think the people at the gate thought when you didn’t come in?” Ruth has asked me from time to time. And the answer is, I don’t know. But nobody seemed sad or upset about it, that’s for sure. They also didn’t seem to realize that I couldn’t come in, no matter how much I wanted to. Why? Again, I don’t know. Perhaps folks on the other side are blissfully oblivious to everything on our side of heaven. As I knew certain things without being told, I am certain my loved ones also had far wider and deeper knowledge than we have on earth. Yet they didn’t appear to know that I couldn’t get in, as they all heartily motioned for me to come on in. It’s just one more puzzle piece of my experience, to be solved when I go back for good.)

———

If only I
could’ve
gotten inside—I so dearly wanted to get closer to my grandparents, my mother, and now Paul and Norm. And I knew if I could get past the gate, I could find William John.

I pushed against the intangible entranceway once again, but it didn’t give even an inch.

Why Did I See Those People?

When I talk about who I saw in heaven, people who know me and who have lost loved ones (especially those I knew on earth) are eager to know if I also saw their wife, husband, son, daughter, parents, or friends.

The truth is, there were hundreds of people I
could’ve
seen—I knew them to be in heaven—whom I just didn’t see. This doesn’t mean for one second that those I didn’t see weren’t there. They are there!

This is something I have pondered time and time again—why did I see the six precious faces I did see, and not so many others?

Since my experience, of course, I’ve read just about everything I can get my hands on written by those who have glimpsed heaven. And one thing seems to be true of them all: they see those who had been influential in their lives. Don Piper, author of
90 Minutes in Heaven
, saw his grandfather, a childhood friend who had died when Don was in his teens and who had been key in leading him to Christ. He saw two teachers, who had also played major roles in his life, and his Native American great-grandmother.

It’s never come to me exactly why I saw those particular people and no one else. Oh, I’ve prayed about it, asked God many times. I’ve thought about it so many times, and I don’t know the answers. Why did I see my Besteman grandparents and not my Sweers grandparents? Why did I see Norm and Paul and not so many other friends who have died? The best answer I’ve received is simply that God chose them for his reasons, and that’s got to be good enough for me. My spiritual advisors have suggested that those people were important to me spiritually, and it’s true—they all were in one way or another.

It’s endlessly intriguing for me to think about why those six were there to greet me. Who will be there to hail me next time I go (for the second and last time)? Will it be the same six, or others? Think about it a minute. Who do you think will be there to greet you?

At this point, you may be wondering why I called this chapter “The Six People I Saw in Heaven,” when any monkey could count the people I’ve mentioned and arrive at the number five. I haven’t told you yet about the best reunion of all. Moments after I spotted Norm and Paul, I saw the one person I longed for the most, the one whose death had cracked this old man’s heart in two: I saw Steve.

M
y eyes went as far left as they could see, over that great gathering of saints. And then, about fifteen yards away, about the length of your average driveway, I saw a really close friend, my unlikely best friend—my forty-two-year-old son-in-law, Steve.

I pressed hard on the invisible gateway again, harder than I had before, but it just didn’t move. All over again, my heart hopped with joy, and my eyes and smile got as big as they would stretch. Steve! He was supremely alive in the midst of this wonder and beauty.

The first time I saw Steve, he was a skinny college boy, a fellow student of my daughter Amy’s at Central Michigan University. They were dating, and Amy had brought him home to meet Ruth and me. He didn’t seem especially nervous, and I remember thinking that he was as polite a fellow as you’d ever want to meet. Never in a million years did I think this smiley kid would one day become, after Ruth, my closest friend and confidante.

Marv and son-in-law Steve (right)

When I got to know Steve, I knew I could trust him with my daughter. He was the type of guy who would be a loyal husband and faithful provider, working hard to support his family. When he came to me and asked for Amy’s hand in marriage, I said the same thing to him that I had said to Joe, Julie’s husband: “Are you sure you can support this young lady in the manner to which she is accustomed?” I was joking (well, half joking). “Can you afford to maintain her?” A man with a daughter is probably only going to get the chance to have his prospective son-in-law over the barrel a couple of times in his whole life, if he’s lucky. I figured I should make the most of it and have a little fun with the situation. But of course I said yes. And I’ve never regretted it for a second.

He Called Me “Dad”

Steve was a great guy. With his servant’s heart, he was always so willing to help other people. If you happened to be stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire, Steve would be the guy who would stop and help you fix it. He’d come over on a Saturday and say, “Dad, do you need anything done around here?” And we’d go to the hardware store, get what we needed, and get the job done together. He was a terrifically loyal person, someone you wanted for a friend, because if he was your friend now, he’d be your friend forever.

Steve prized fishing the way Ruth and I prize golfing. He’d go pan fishing all the time and come back with walleye and pike. Luckily, he was generous with his catch; our freezer was full of fish.

One time he gave us a huge hunk of all different kinds of fish just frozen together in a massive block. I thought we’d have to host a fish fry for twenty people to get rid of it all!

Good thing Steve loved to eat. He was the first one at the table and the last one to leave, and he never lost a chance to tell Ruth that she was the best cook in the world (she loved that). We marveled at how much food a skinny guy like that could put away. After he finally finished piling all that food in, he would help clear the table and wash the dishes. Seriously, Steve was as perfect a son-in-law as any man could ask for.

Yet, I was taken aback when he came to me with a question not too long after he and Amy got married. Two or three months after their wedding, Steve’s dad had died, far too young.

Members of the Besteman family

He came to me about six months later with the question: “I don’t have a dad anymore, and I need one. Will you be my dad?”

I said I would pray about it, and that yes, I would try to be his dad. But he didn’t want me to tell anyone, not even Ruth. It was our secret, and that change in our relationship was what bonded us so strongly.

In the years to come, Steve would come to me often and ask me for advice about everything. He had lots of questions about raising their two children—how to mete out punishment and praise, parenting techniques, problem solving, and so forth. I felt I had made mistakes many times while I was raising our kids and had learned from those mistakes, so I gave him the answers I had gathered from trial and error. Steve asked me about spiritual matters, marriage, emotions, relationships of all kinds, and quite a bit about financial issues. He didn’t always follow my advice, but he asked and I tried to answer as best I could. We talked and talked and talked. And gradually, over years of heartfelt conversation, we became as close as any father and son could be.

The Prime of His Life

By the time Steve was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, in 2005, I couldn’t imagine life without my bonus son.

I had never heard of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (also known as EDS), but I sure didn’t like the sounds of it. Research statistics show that EDS occurs in one in 5,000 people, and it is known to affect both men and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

I’m no doctor, but Ruth is a nurse and a darn good one. She and I became very familiar fast with this rare condition that had stricken our Steve. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a group of connective tissue disorders, characterized by extreme joint mobility, skin that pulls easily off the bone (doctors call this “extensibility”), and delicate, fragile skin tissue. The syndrome is named after two doctors, Edvard Ehlers of Denmark, and Henri-Alexandre Danlos of France, who identified it at the turn of the twentieth century.

Apparently, Steve and all those who suffer from EDS have a flaw in their connective tissue, the tissue that provides support to many body parts such as the skin, muscles, and ligaments. The easily breakable skin and unstable joints found in EDS are the result of faulty collagen. (Collagen is a protein that acts as a “glue” in the body, adding strength and elasticity to connective tissue.) EDS patients don’t have this glue, and so they are prone to dislocate bones. Steve was always having sports injuries. He would dislocate a knee, and then a shoulder, and then a finger. We just thought he was very unlucky and susceptible to injuries. No one suspected anything more serious than that.

His veins were just dissolving, we learned. One doctor told Steve and Amy that during an operation, trying to suture a vein affected by EDS was like “sewing spaghetti.” Another image we were given was comparing his veins to a tire being blown out. His vessels would just burst, causing internal bleeding.

Super-flexible joints are also a key feature of the disease. People with EDS can often bend their fingers all the way back, or grab a section of their skin and pull it up, creating a bizarre-looking tent, as if that person had lost 100 pounds and now their skin was too loose.

Depending on what kind of EDS you have or how it mutates in your body, the severity of the disease can vary from mild to life-threatening.

A biopsy in February of 2005 confirmed that Steve had the syndrome, and that his case was severe, although we didn’t begin to grasp how severe until months afterward. There is no cure, and treatment only helps slow down and manage the symptoms. Steve’s doctors monitored his condition closely, telling him to use extra caution when engaging in the slightest activity, or even playing with his kids. Any kind of accidental blow, especially to his midsection, could make his symptoms so much worse (Steve was having aneurisms in his midsection). He couldn’t run and jump around and wrestle with the kids like he used to, especially not when a basketball to the belly would have been the worst thing in the world.

He began to tire very easily. Even mowing the grass was so hard on him that he had to come in to lie down for quite a while to recuperate. It took so much out of him.

At one point, around December of 2005, the possibility of surgery to correct the problem was brought up. Spaghetti or not, there was a chance the doctors could operate and possibly fix the blood vessels so they wouldn’t be so delicate. People in his life advised him to have the surgery soon. But Steve was firm: “I’m not ruining my kids’ Christmas.”

Losing Steve

Never once did we think Steve would die from this, although in hindsight I can see that I just did not want to go there in my mind. Amy never asked the doctors if Steve would die; rather, her question was, “What’s his life going to be like?”

“Compromised,” was their answer, which I took to mean that he would have to sleep a lot more and take extra precautions in his everyday activities. Overall, the doctors had given Steve and Amy quite a bit of confidence that he would live a semi-normal life.

We felt good enough about Steve’s prognosis that we left for Arizona for the winter months, as usual. I had no idea when I said goodbye to Steve that I was saying goodbye until our meeting in heaven.

When we got to Sun City, we were in frequent touch with Steve and Amy over phone and email. His surgery was scheduled for the beginning of February, and Ruth flew back to Grand Rapids to take care of the kids while Steve and Amy drove to the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

They packed their van and drove the six hours, taking down the seats in the back and making a bed with pillows and a mattress, because the doctor said he would have to lie down the whole trip home. They expected him to come home. I expected the same thing.

Did he know he might die? I think he had a feeling deep down he might. So many people had prayed for him at his church, and when Ruth said goodbye, he was stoic. “Just give me a kiss and we’ll be off,” he said to her, in a breezy way. I think he was tired of people carrying on like he was on his deathbed already, and wanted the goodbye to be businesslike, not dramatic or drawn out.

His pastor had written him an email in which he asked him if he was ready to die. Steve’s answer was yes. But he didn’t want to dwell on it, that’s for sure.

After his initial surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, Steve suffered a cardiac arrest. Sadly, he never got on top of it again after that cardiac arrest. Three more surgeries followed in the next nine days, and after the second operation, they didn’t even bother to close him up again. Things were as grim as they could possibly be.

When I realized that Steve could die, I threw everything in the car and drove from Arizona to Michigan by myself. It’s a long trip, and I had many hours to think about what was happening. I prayed and cried and prayed some more.

Back at the hospital, Julie and Mark and Steve’s mother and brothers had joined Amy at her husband’s bedside, where he hovered between life and death. Steve was on so many pain medications, and he was hallucinating a lot and not making much sense. But he didn’t suffer—for that I’m so thankful.

After the fourth surgery, the doctors couldn’t stop the internal hemorrhaging, and Steve basically bled to death. That cheerful, skinny kid with the heart of gold was gone—it was impossible to take in.

In the middle of the night, when the phone rang at Amy and Steve’s house, Ruth knew it was bad news. Mark was calling to tell her Steve had died. Then I got the dreaded phone call, from Ruth, and . . . well, I’m choked up just remembering it all. I can’t even express how I felt. It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through. My daughter had lost her husband and my grandchildren had lost their dad. How those kids would miss their dad! How Amy would miss her husband!

Steve was so talented, and so young—far too young to die. I would have gladly taken his place so he could live into his seventies like I had. His family adored him, and the kids loved him at the school where he taught. I remembered that he was so excited about heading up the robotics club at school and now there would be no one to head it up. You think of the strangest things when someone dies, don’t you?

I went over to Amy’s house, and together Ruth and I told our grandchildren they had lost their father. There are no words to describe their shock and grief. I myself cried like a baby. I had lost my son-in-law, and I had lost my best friend.

Walking, and Leaping, and Praising God

Two months later, I was to see Steve far sooner than I had ever expected. After my trip to heaven, it took me awhile to tell my family what had happened. At first, I didn’t want to tell anyone, not even Ruth. (I’ll explain further on in the book why it was so difficult for me to share my experience. But this piece of the story relates to Steve.) When I finally broke down and told Ruth, though, the ice was broken, and not too long afterward I told my three children.