Even in the darkness of the cell, with the lights turned off, I could tell that what was before me was a body hanging on a noose and immediately moved to try to lift the young body off. Whatever strength I thought I lacked, even though Josh was not a heavy-set person, I still needed to lift a body up and use ungodly strength to loosen the noose, in the dark, to get the lifeless body off the noose.
I could barely see, crying to myself, and saying to myself, and to the lifeless body, “Why Josh, why!! You said you’d give me time! Why…why…why?”
I put the body on the cold floor and immediately thought the best I could do was try CPR. I never trained for it, but I had seen enough television to believe that the idea was to, quite literally, breath life back into the body.
I turned his face, with his eyes closed, and attempted to breath into his mouth. With great desperation, I controlled my breathing, while my heart was racing with great fear…he was already dead. I was attempting only what a fool would try to do…bring him back to life.
How long was he hanging there? Seconds? Minutes? It didn’t matter. I was left to do an impossible task, something only God could do. I blew gently into Josh’s mouth, waiting a couple of seconds, then tried again. After a few failing attempts, I moved to make compressions on his chest. Nothing was working.
“God, why did you do this to me?” I said as I tried to breath into his mouth again, tears falling over his face. I tried the chest compressions again…nothing.
“If he is dead, I have nothing left to do for you: I can do nothing if I cannot believe!” I said to God, in prayer. “If you require more of me, then you yourself must do something I cannot do. I cannot save him; you see what I am dealing with? If I cannot have your help now, I will never believe that I can ever have it to do anything else!”
I moved again to breathe into Josh’s mouth with no success at all. I tried again, wiping tears off my face and his, as my tears rained down on him. I moved again, trying the chest compressions praying for a longshot that few could ever believe in. I was careful not to do the chest compressions too hard, but my anxiety of a dead person before me on the floor, caused me to perhaps press too hard, thinking the harder I pushed the quicker I could kick-start his heart.
No chance. Nothing was working.
“God, I need a favor; I cannot bear this loss. If I must live through the longest day I’ve ever lived, I will never let you and all of heaven forget that a person you put in my path was lost because I lacked the faith to do what only you can do. And if he dies, I will surely never return to society, as this prison will charge me with murder.”
“I need a miracle, or I can never believe in one again.”
I got up, went to Josh and tried once more. I breathed into Josh, praying that if I must give my last breath for him to breathe, so be it. At least I would have done something right. I breathed a long breath into Josh’s lungs…
Nothing.
I did all I could. I failed. I cried in my despair, and the loss of this young man. I moved to the other side of the cell, slumping down in the dark. By morning, I will be charged with his death, even if they knew he committed suicide. My life, such as it is, would surely be over.
I only have one way out of this…and Josh paved the way for it. I would have to do the same thing.
“Fred,” said a faint voice.
My heart leapt, hearing what I thought was an illusion, but when I looked at the body of Josh, I saw his face, turned to me. I leaned forward, not sure if what I was looking at was real. But, there it was.
Josh slowly moved and turned to me. “Why Fred, why did you save me?”
“Fred, when I was dead, I stood in a place with a bridge, leading to something fantastic. It had to have been heaven, but I was at the bridge. I walked there, with weights on my legs. I got to the bridge, and a person, I don’t know who, was there. He looked at me with the most sympathetic eyes, seemingly knowing what I went through.”
Josh moved to sit up, as I sat there listening to him. He seemed much different. More relaxed than when I came into the cell. Something happened to him, and he was telling me the reason.
“The person looked at me, then looked down at my feet. He smiled and said to me, ‘We would love to have you now, but it seems you cannot come yet.’ I looked at him, worried that I was being rejected, and asked why. He told me, ‘You are welcome here when you come, but it seems HE needs you to stay. Look.”
“I looked down at my feet, thinking my sins were weighing me down. It wasn’t. It was a person, holding on to my legs. I looked to the person, and he looked to me, begging me not to leave, not this way. He was full of tears as he looked at me.”
Josh then moved closer and looked at me. “Fred, it was YOU!”
“Me?”
“You had a dream before you woke up; you jumped in a hole with creatures, giving your life for someone…that was me. The person on the bridge told me to share that with you. That thump on the bed…that was to save my life. Had you not heard it, you would not have gotten me down in time to save me. Fred, God was watching the entire time.”
I sat there, absorbing the revelation of what Josh was telling me. It was perhaps the answer of the prayer I made, to save Josh’s life. I could not answer, the miracle of Josh coming back to life was enough for me to keep silent. But looking at Josh, it was clear that he was a different person. He saw and experienced something that changed his life.
“You were put here to help people, and you were right where you needed to be Fred, even if you didn’t understand it,” Josh said.
It was then I remember a phrase I heard years ago, when God once said to me, “Whom shall I send, if no one wants to go?” My difficulties were a path to help those who were in far more difficult times than I was, even if I didn’t understand why I was suffering as much as I did.
“You saved my life Fred but make no mistake, God used you to do it. You didn’t fail in life; you’re right where you are needed because so few care about the least of us. The man at the bridge told me that I had to go back, because, as he put it, ‘this person is important and valued. He cared, even if he doesn’t understand where he is in his life. Go back, and live.’”
I could say nothing, I sat there in the dark, not knowing whether to jump for joy, or continue to be confused.
“Fred, there is still more required of you. I was told to tell you that.”
More required of me. More required of all of us, to care for those people have forgotten. Josh and I remained good friends, and he is now home, living well. I will do the same, and continue to do what I can, even if the path is unknown.
I owe that to God.
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