He Was Afraid He Wouldn't Die Well—Here's The Lesson

Only one of my three friends showed up that day for our regularly scheduled monthly dinner. The one who showed said, “I just heard from my doctor. He told me I have Stage IV colon cancer.

“I am so sorry. That’s awful,” I said reflexively. Then I asked, “What are you doing here with me? You should be home with your wife.”

The real question banging around in my head was, “Why am I the only other friend from our group who showed up?”

As the hostess was seating us, I was praying to God.

“What do I say?”

“What should I do?”

“Should I insist he go home and be with his wife?”

God told me to stay and listen. And that is what I did.

When we sat down, after the drink order was taken, my friend told me this meeting was meant to be. He was supposed to be here, and so was I. It was God’s appointed time for the three of us.

This made the burden I was feeling even heavier. But I stayed and listened, just like God told me to. It was time for me to trust God, because I knew, deep in my heart, there was no trusting me in this situation.

My friend confessed to me that he was afraid. He was afraid of what was to come. The treatments, the sickness from Chemo, the pain, and ultimately, death. He confessed he was afraid to die. Not so much being dead, but the process of dying.

“What is your biggest fear?” I asked.

He thought for a moment and then said, “I am afraid I won’t die well. I want to be a great witness for Jesus. To all who know me.”

I knew my friend well. He ran two companies for me. We’ve been meeting for these monthly dinners for thirteen years. I knew him and loved him.

But I learned at his funeral three years after his fatal diagnosis that I only knew a part of his life. There were over one thousand people at his funeral. I figured I only knew twenty percent of them, at best. His communities and network ran much deeper and wider than I ever would have guessed.

These are the people my friend was thinking about when he said to me, “I am afraid I won’t die well.”

That night marked the beginning of a long, hard battle for survival.

He observed, “I start Chemo in a couple of weeks. The doctor told me I’ll be on it until it eventually proves ineffective. I’m thinking these next two weeks are the best I’ll feel for the rest of my life.”

For three years, he fought, suffered, and beat the cancer into remission. He showed up every two weeks for the chemo treatment at our local hospital. Every two weeks, he would suffer through the recovery from the chemotherapy. And every time he won this bi-weekly battle, the next day, he went into his next chemo treatment. He did this for three years.

While praying for him early in this process, God told me, “Go with him to his treatments.” If you know me, you know, this is not me. I am not the empathetic friend who does hospital support. But God told me to do it.

I asked my friend if I could attend some of the in-town treatments with him. To my surprise, he agreed. That was an incredible experience for me. I got to see up close what it looked like to try to beat cancer with Chemo.

Just walking into the cancer center’s “infusion room” was overwhelming. There were seventy-five recliners, each filled with seventy-five people. Each of them had one or two bags of clear liquid hanging from a pole, with a tube running directly into the port in their chest—a direct infusion.

To see a room that size with that many people really set me back. “Is this modern medicine? Is this how we fight cancer in 2023? Is this state-of-the-art medicine?”

By joining my friend for these infusions, I now realize I was with him on his best days. His worst days immediately followed the infusion of the chemotherapy. I wasn’t there for those days. But his wife and kids were. He was there too.

Recently, after this battle with Stage IV colon cancer, he called me from his hospital at 7 AM. He was rushed to the hospital in unbearable pain from the cancer and went to the Emergency Room. Three days of painkillers, tests, and consultations, He called me.

My friend said, “The doctors told me last night they are out of ideas to fight my cancer. There are no other trials I can be admitted to that will have any positive effect against my cancer.”

Then my friend told me this story.

“Last night, my family surrounded me as I lay in my hospital bed. We talked. We prayed. We cried. We decided together that it was time for me to accept home hospice care. To go from life-giving treatments to comfort care, ending in death.”

I caught a vision during that conversation. A vision of my friend, his wife, and his kids standing together before God, holding hands, crying with relief. They were there to accept that it was time to let their father go. His wife was there, finally accepting that it was time to let her husband go. They asked God if he was ready to receive my friend. God told them that evening, “Let me have him.” How beautiful it was to write what I pictured so clearly.

I was allowed to visit my friend at his home twice more before he was too weak to receive visitors.

The last time we met, I was determined to keep the meeting under fifteen minutes. He was frail. He was weak. This man of six foot one and, at his strongest, two hundred and thirty pounds, was just a shadow of himself: clear eyes, strong jaw, and sharp mind, but a weak body.

I asked him about that dinner question.

You’ve been through a lot in these last three years. And now there is no one better equipped to answer that question than you. What’s the answer?

You told me, “I am afraid I won’t die well. How do I die well?”

He said, “My answer is this. It doesn’t matter.”

I didn’t discuss this answer. I didn’t pry or probe for a better explanation. I just took it for what it was.

We prayed together. We embraced, and I kissed him on the cheek. We said we loved each other. We committed to seeing each other in Heaven. We said goodbye. I got up from my chair, and as I was walking toward the door, I looked back. My friend was sitting in his chair by the fireplace. He was at peace. There was no fear, just love.

That was the last time I saw my friend.

He died well and left a big hole in all our hearts.

Death is so final.

Life goes on.

God is still God.

Love prevails.

Nothing else matters.