I remember, too, when I was a little older and Clay had taken my dad and my younger brother out on Lake Norman in his boat. They returned late in the day with quite a story: Clay had somehow managed to ground his speedboat on a sand bar. Apparently he bore it with admirable nonchalance, until my brother, who must have been four or five years old, began asking why Clay had wrecked the boat...and wouldn't stop asking, over and over again. "Clay, why did you wreck the boat? Clay, how long are we gonna be stuck here?"
Then one day, Clay surprised us all. He called my dad and told him he had to come over to his house so he could show him something. Confused, my dad complied, and Clay led him into the spare bedroom. There, of all things, was a baby! Apparently Clay had decided that no one was ever going to want to marry him (why, we could never figure), but he really wanted a child, so he had gone and adopted Lauren without telling anyone. My dad was skeptical at first, but he quickly saw that Clay was going to really come alive in his new role as a father. As my dad describes it, it was as if you had been exploring a museum full of beautiful works of art and then had turned a corner to discover the treasure room, whose contents surpassed all expectations of beauty and value. That was how Clay's character blossomed as he parented Lauren.
Naturally, Clay wanted to have Lauren baptized in our church, and my dad was thrilled to perform the sacrament. Present in the service, as on every Sunday, was Mary. Mary was a wonderful, sweet woman, but a little strange. She had a mystical flair that seemed a bit out of place in our down-to-earth Methodist congregation. After church on the day that Lauren was baptized, Mary sought out my dad and told him she had had a vision. My dad was skeptical, but he had little choice but to hear her out.
I can only imagine the look of polite but feigned interest on his face as he heard her describe how, when Lauren was brought before the baptismal font, she saw the roof of the church lift off. A great light streamed into the sanctuary, she said, and shone on the child, and angels descended and gathered around to watch this baby girl being brought into the life of the church. My dad probably muttered a nervous "Wow" and disentangled himself from the conversation as quickly as possible. He didn't think twice about Mary's vision.
Five years later, almost to the day, my dad received a phone call. By then, Clay had moved with Lauren to Texas to take a job at a hospital out there. He and my dad had stayed in touch, but this was not a routine phone call. My dad listened in shock as Clay told him that he had an inoperable brain tumor and had six months to live. Clay was a doctor. He knew exactly what his chances were, knew just why surgery was not an option, knew the kind of swift, inexorable death that awaited him.
The news was difficult for my whole family. Clay was a young man, talented and likable, and should have had decades of life ahead of him. It seemed senseless that the malady he worked to relieve others of would now take his life. And then, too, there was Lauren. She was five years old now, a beautiful child with thick blonde hair and a crooked smile. Clay had already arranged for a new home for her after he passed. All that remained was to say his goodbyes and wait for the tumor to claim him.
The day after my dad heard the news, he received an unexpected piece of mail. It was from Mary. We had since moved to Charlotte and had not seen Mary in a while. Curious, my dad opened it to find a card with a strange illustration on the front. As he read Mary's enclosed note, he understood and was flabbergasted. Out of nowhere, five years after this vision that she hadn't shared with anyone but my dad, Mary had suddenly thought about Lauren's baptism again. Inspired, she had an artist do a visual rendering of the vision and had notecards made with the image. She had sent one to my dad just so he could see the picture and remember this strange little event from half a decade before.
Some people thought it meant Clay was going to be healed. Others shook it off as a weird coincidence. Some wondered if even then, at Lauren's baptism, there had been some shadow in Clay that had somehow been detected in Mary's vision. Many were sure that the child was under a form of protection that would hold her even after Clay passed. Even my dad, leery of visions and mystical experience, had to say that to call it a coincidence was ridiculous. Five years had gone by since Mary had had the vision. She must have recalled that day and had the painting done around the same time Clay was diagnosed. She mailed my dad the card before he got the call from Clay; no one in North Carolina knew before then that he was sick.
I'll admit—I'm not sure what this story means. But I do think that maybe it means that there is someone watching out for us. That doesn't mean that brain tumors will miraculously disappear; sometimes they do, but Clay's did not. What I think it means is that when God breaks into our hearts, we may find that we are closer to our neighbor than we first thought, perhaps closer than is comfortable.
Here's the artist's rendering of Mary's vision:
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