Jerry died at home on Sept 21 2022 after being in the Tillamook Hospital Sept 12 - 14, 2022. He had collapsed at home on Sept 12 and broke his collarbone in the fall. He collapsed due to loss of blood from a bleeding ulcer. The bleeding was stopped but there were other issues in his stomach and the doctors wanted to send him to Portland for more surgery. He said, "No more hospitals. I want to go home."
We got Hospice set up and brought him home on September 15th. He spent 6 days at home while we took care of him. Each day he ate and drank less and less. He could not move and was completely bed ridden due to the broken collarbone and then rheumatoid arthritis inflammation in all his joints which had come on since he could no longer take his RA medications. I prayed each day that the Lord would allow him to die quietly and peacefully in his sleep and that his suffering would finally end.
At 3:43 a.m. on the morning of Sept 21st, I (Deb) was some way awakened as I was sleeping near him on the couch and went to his side and heard his last 2 breaths and he passed from this life to the next. I woke up son Chris who came downstairs and listened for breathing and heartbeat but there was none. This was at 4 a.m. Jerry had gone to be with Jesus.
As Chris and I had never experienced anything like this we were at a loss as to the next move. It was a beautiful fall morning so we went out and stood on the back deck to breathe and think about what and who we had just lost. As we looked into the night sky as morning was beginning to break, three shooting stars, all at the same time, shot over the top of the large spruce tree. Both of us saw them and gasped. Then within another minutes a very small wisp of a cloud appeared up in the sky towards the west. Both of us questioned this as there were no clouds in the sky anywhere else. It was not there when we saw the shooting stars and then it was there. As we watched for seconds it then disappeared. It was if the heavens had opened and then it closed. The shooting stars came and went. The cloud appeared and then disappeared. Jerry was here on earth and then he was gone. This all happened within 20 minutes of his passing. We knew we had just witnesses a miracle. The final moments of physical life as the spirit passes into the next life. Just as Jesus promised.
Luke 23:43 (KJV) - And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.
