David Weir
You would have liked David! I first met David and his lovely wife, Lisa, in the fall of the 1980’s. We met at Church one Sunday morning. They were married in the early summer of that year, and the glow of newly wed bliss still radiated from their countenance.
The couple had met at college in Stillwater. That’s how the romance began growing into a beautiful, loving relationship of mutual commitment and respect.
David stood at six feet two inches with wavy blonde hair and dark blue eyes. When I first met David I asked him, “Do you enjoy playing basketball?” He said, “Yes!” “We are starting a church league next month; would you like to play?” He was an excellent basketball player. He played forward on our team. He had a smooth left-handed jump shot with a soft touch that would swish the net as it cleared the rim.
With his help we were champions of the league! As the season came to a close, I asked him if he would like to play slow-pitch softball in the spring and summer. Once more he agreed. He threw right-handed but batted left-handed, and was our shortstop. David caught the ball like a human vacuum cleaner, and had an arm like a cannon. He swung his bat with power! Needless to say, we were dominant in our inter-denominational league.
During the second season of softball, two events occurred. Lisa discovered she was pregnant! David was thrilled at the prospect of becoming a daddy! But the second was more serious.
He began experiencing pain in his ribs and back. He thought he had pulled a muscle. His family doctor treated him for this but with no relief from the pain. Lisa and David were sent to specialist where a reddish spot on the left side of his back was discovered.
When David was in junior high, he and his father had crawled under a house. As he climbed out he stood up, scraping his back on the side of the house, causing it to begin bleeding. David had scratched off a mole. When x-rayed, a long shadow resembling a hot dog, extending from his side to his spine was discovered. A biopsy revealed melanoma. The doctors recommended excision of the tumor.
I prayed with him before, after surgery, and prayerfully waited with the family for the doctor’s report. He felt he got all of it, “but you just don’t know about melanoma,” he said.
Post-surgery imaging revealed that the melanoma had spread all over David’s body. For the next two weeks as I made the hospital calls, I knocked on the door of David’s room, and his mother or father would answer the door and say, “David is resting and he isn’t to be disturbed!”
Borrowing a chair from another room, I moved it next to David’s door where I prayed for David, either sitting in the chair or kneeling on the floor with my face buried in my hands. After two weeks of being heavily medicated,
David asked his mother and father, “Has my friend, John, been by to pray with me?”
They said, “Yes, he’s been here every day for two weeks, praying outside the room.”
Somewhat upset with them he said, “I want to see him now! Every time he comes I want to see and pray with him!”
Afterwards, I received a phone call stating, “David wants to see you right now!” I left what I was doing and went immediately to David’s bedside. He apologized for the way his parents had treated me for the last two weeks, and I reassured him that they were protecting him and helping him to receive a lot of important rest. We talked, prayed and laughed! I prayed for a miracle, and David prayed for God’s will to be done!
When the doctors told us it wouldn’t be long before he would breathe his last breath, David wanted his pregnant wife, his father and mother and me (his friend) to be with him. Taking turns, we stayed awake with David continuously until the morning hours. When it was my turn I held his hand, and we talked about all the fun times we had shared playing ball. In the early morning hours he told me, “John, I would love to stay here to play ball with you and the church teams, but it’s not meant to be.” We cried together.
Taking turns holding his hands, none of us ever left the room. He told his mom and dad what great parents they were and that he dearly loved them. They told him what a terrific, godly son he was, and they wept together!
Then Lisa, the love of his life, took her turn to hold his hand in the fleeting last hours of his life.
David said, “Lisa, I don’t want to leave you! I love being your husband!”
Lisa had just learned a couple of days before that she would be having a son. Emotional, David told Lisa, “I would love to co-parent our son together, but it’s obviously not God’s will! You are the joy of my life! Please let our son know that I love him!”
As the sun rose in the east, David’s spirit danced on its rays to be with his Heavenly Father. And we sobbed! We lost a super son, fantastic friend, would have been first-rate father and an affectionate, loving husband!
Then I remembered David whispering in my ear, “John, I am excited about meeting you at Heaven’s open gate! I will be the blond-haired, blued-eyed guy waving at you!”
I still miss you, David!