From Heaven

We have all heard of Heaven is for Real, the story of the little boy who experienced heaven during a severe illness. But now we have an account even closer to home. My husband made a Christmas call to the wife of his late brother, Delmar, last night, and she had some startling things to say.

Of course Barbara has been missing her husband terribly since he passed away in February and has had a tough year of adjustment. She is especially close to one great-grandson, the seven-year-old boy our hearts had gone out to at the funeral of his beloved Poppy. Crazy about his great-grandfather, the child was inconsolable at the services. I remember the tears spilling out from his closed lashes as my sister-in-law held him close while they wept together.

The other day when he was spending time with Barbara, he announced that he had seen Poppy in a dream. “I asked him why he left us, and he told me God was through with him on earth and called him to come home to live in heaven,” he said solemnly. Since he has always been a spiritually sensitive child, his Nana didn’t doubt him. She asked how Delmar looked, to which the little boy responded, “He was happy and he looked nice,” he said, “but his hair was different. It wasn’t combed.” When Howard told me that, I thought I knew what he meant.

In his later years, my brother-in-law’s hair had grown thin, and he had a receding hairline. He compensated for this by letting his hair grow long and doing a “comb over” which was held in place with hair spray. I thought back to a picture I had seen of Delmar as a young man. He had a full head of wavy hair, thick and luxuriant, adding what seemed at least an inch to his height. In a child’s way of explanation, it did not look combed and slicked back as he was used to seeing it. In other words, Delmar looked young!

The little boy said, “I saw other people, too,” and named aunts and uncles he couldn’t have known, even Barbara’s mother who had passed away many years ago. “They were all glad to see me,” he told his Nana. “But after he told me he loved me, Poppy said I had to go back home.”

I believe this very well could have happened. Delmar was a preacher of the gospel for nearly 60 years, since he was a teen, and he shared a close bond with this little great-grandson, teaching him from the Word and nurturing faith in him all his life. There were other remarkable stories Barbara related to Howard as they shared memories of their loved one. No doubt their long conversation was a balm to her on this night, her first Christmas without her husband, but surely not nearly as comforting as what she learned from the little boy.