chapter 7
Homecomings
“Do you think I should turn this car around and lead the ambulance right back where we came from? Are we making a huge mistake?”
It had been several months since Columbus Children’s had become our home away from home. The ministry of God’s people had kept our lives from completely unraveling, and we were deeply grateful. But by this time, home was where we needed to be. The prospect of taking Alex home required three things. He had to be stable and strong; Beth and I had to be ready (knowledgeable enough) to care for him; and our house had to be ready to shelter us.
I continued to believe that Alex would breathe on his own before he left that hospital. It didn’t happen. A new trach tube helped with the discomfort Alex was feeling with the breathing equipment, but he really wanted to be free of it. He was also becoming stiff and needed stretching to keep his body limber.
Throughout all this, Alex never lost his sense of humor, which he had brought with him out of his coma. He playfully dubbed one of his assistants “Jane the Pain.”
Angels, he assured us, continued to come and go. When the pastor was there praying for him, for example, four were present, though only Alex could see or hear them. (Miles away, we had eight angels of our own up on the roof of our house, but they were the visible and noisy type. We were grateful for their “surgery” on our ailing home.)
After months of living half our lives in the hospital and trying to get everything else done in a parallel universe, Beth and I were wearing down, and our relationship had developed some rough edges. There were many times I wished I could take back sharp words and bad attitudes. I know Beth felt the same. The truth is, at times we exhibited our worst sides to each other, often in earshot of others. We aren’t proud of our behavior, but an honest account of these times mustn’t gloss over the trauma our marriage sustained in the midst of everything else. There were too many demands: caring for Alex, supplying love and physical needs for three other children, getting our house repaired, resuming my business—we knew we couldn’t maintain such a schedule forever. Several times we recommitted ourselves to supporting and leaning on each other, getting enough sleep, and depending upon the prayers of our many supporters.
Stressed but Blessed
In the last days at Children’s Hospital, tensions heightened. Sleep was evasive. We were given a crash course in caring for our son, a quadriplegic on a respirator, and felt inadequately prepared for the challenge. These desperate hours pushed us to the limit and, again, we failed to live up to our ideals of what a Christian marriage should be. Not to make excuses for our sin. But in retrospect we believe we took on too much too soon.
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There have been nights and weeks and days when my body was so spent I did not know how I could function, move, or breathe. There have been assaults to my character, my spirituality, my relationship with Jesus. There has been nothing spared to try to stop me. The cool thing is, not only did God give me a compassionate heart so that I hurt when other people hurt, but He also gave me stubbornness—in a good way. He knows I will not stop.
I tell people, “I wish I could take credit for some of this, but I can’t.” I can only explain it as Him. I recognize His supernatural strength, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding all the time. I have learned to cling to the Savior.
Beth Malarkey, Alex’s mom
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Our Internet correspondents thought we’d dropped off the face of the earth. Whenever we got home, we collapsed into bed, only to get up and move on to the next high-priority task after just a few precious hours of sleep. Beth was feeling totally overwhelmed, and I felt helpless in trying to support and encourage her—my own hands were full at the same time. I also worried that I was losing track of my other three children because there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to attend to all my responsibilities.
In those final days at the hospital, Alex was learning to work with computers by himself, and not surprisingly he was very excited by the opportunity. He called the computer Alex 2 and operated it with a switch on his face. He could also use facial muscles to pilot a motorized wheelchair around the hospital. Reports soon filtered back to us that he was wreaking vengeance on Jane the Pain and other personnel, running them down in the hallways.
His attitude continued to amaze everyone. He thought his MRI was fun. He even got the nurses to take him down to the X-ray lab and convinced the technicians to take X-rays of two of his stuffed animals. He showed a gung-ho attitude about the wheelchair and every other new challenge introduced into his world. He labored tirelessly to regain the ability to talk. Everyone who saw Alex strive and fight for every inch of ground was encouraged, including his parents.
During this time, however, Alex began to feel some pain for what he had lost. After prayer one night, he told us he wished he could ride his bike. As his limbs grew stiffer, his memory grew more supple, bringing back all the things he used to do—the trees he once climbed, the games he played, and the bike he rode. His previous, little-boy life gradually came back into focus, only to remind him of what was now beyond his grasp.
The centerpiece of the care regimen Beth and I needed to master was changing Alex’s tracheotomy tube. It was a complex, frightening task at first, but we were soon doing it without a hitch.
Whenever we found ourselves at our wits’ end, God was there waiting to show us a bigger picture, to reveal His plans to us. He humbled us many times, demonstrating how much He loved us, how much He had blessed us.
While Alex was seeing angels in the hospital, we were experiencing God’s angels of a different kind. Eight men worked tirelessly to rebuild our roof better than it was when the tree smashed it. Other volunteers worked to repair problems we had discovered in our new home since the accident. A complete (and very expensive) water filtration system was installed. God’s angel contractors logged countless hours of work for plumbing, vents, and other essential functions in the house.
A donor paid $1,500 for a special mattress that Alex needed. Then, when the owner of the mattress company read about it on our Web site, he called the donor, got his address, and mailed the check back. Someone else supplied us with new appliances.
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We are weary, but we are fighting that others may see God (even though at times we hardly resemble disciples of Christ). . . . God is our strength, but you are His hands and feet.
PrayforAlex.com post by Kevin Malarkey on December 10, 2004
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I’ve only touched the very tip of the iceberg. God’s supplying our needs became so commonplace that we were in danger of taking for granted all that He was doing through His people to meet our needs and show the love that could grow among His children. As the Bible says, “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35).
The day approached for Alex’s return home. The house was ready, but were we? We certainly didn’t feel like it. With baby Ryan in tow, Beth drove to the hospital for the final meeting with the staff on February 14, 2005. I kept up via teleconference as I took care of Gracie and Aaron at home. At this point, there was nothing that worried me more than Beth’s state of mind. She was exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally, and I worried that through my impatience and insensitivity, I might be contributing to her struggle rather than alleviating it.
Alex would be coming home by ambulance the next morning. He was so excited he could almost have floated home. Instead of waiting for family members to come visit him, he would be with us all the time. When I reminded Alex that he would see his dog, Sadie, for the first time in three months, a huge smile broke out across his face.
Everyone was ecstatic that Alex was coming home, but despite our preparation, we felt as if we weren’t even close to ready for his arrival.
Beth Hears about Heaven
As nurses came in and out of the room, Beth changed Alex’s trach tube, with myriad details swirling in her already overburdened mind. Alex waited until Beth finished and then indicated that he wanted to be alone with Mommy and baby Ryan. The hospital staff respectfully left the room and shut the door. What is on Alex’s mind? Beth wondered as she cuddled with him. Alex was at the stage when he could only form words with his mouth and make a faint whisper. Beth leaned in and listened. Alex mouthed, “I want to tell you about the accident.”
“Okay, honey, what do you want to tell me?”
Beth’s voice was even, but her spirit was startled. This was the last topic she expected Alex to talk about in the moments prior to going home. And it was the first time Alex had spoken to us about the day of the accident.
“Jesus came and got me from the car and kept me close to Him the whole time. I was above my body, watching everyone work on me. I was safe. Jesus kept talking to me, telling me I was going to be okay, so I was never afraid.”
At this, a radiant smile bathed Alex’s face. He had wanted so long to share his experience and was now gaining the ability to form the words with his mouth, even if he couldn’t get much sound out of his lips.
“What else did you see?”
“I saw Daddy taken out of the car. The angels set him down in the ditch.”
Beth understood what Alex meant by “taken out.” He was saying that his daddy was never thrown from the car, nor had he wandered out in a daze. Angels had literally carried his body to a safe place.
“Then I saw Daddy yelling my name: ‘Alex! Alex! Alex!’ Daddy didn’t know where I was, and he was worried about me.”
“Did that make you sad, honey?”
“No. I wasn’t sad. I was with Jesus. Then lots more firemen came. One fireman brought Daddy his phone, and I saw him make a call.”
Beth’s mind raced back to the moment of that call. Humanly speaking, Alex had no way of knowing about it.
“Another fireman put something in my mouth to help me breathe. A nurse helped me in the car. The firemen took me out of the car and put me on a flat board. They cut my shirt off. It was my plaid shirt. They took off my shoes, too. Daddy went over to the helicopter to talk with the man in the blue suit.”
“Alex, do you mean an orange suit? I think that’s what he may have been wearing.”
“No, Mommy. It was a blue suit!”
This would have been the man from MedFlight, the air medical transport group that had provided the helicopter. Later Beth asked me about the uniform, because when Dave had spoken to her at the hospital, she was sure he was in an orange suit. But I told her that Alex was right on the money—it was indeed blue.
“I saw the helicopter man bend over me and pray for me. Then they also put Daddy on a flat board before they put him in the ambulance. They cut off his clothes, too.”
All of this was true, and he had no way to know any of it. He had been unconscious from soon after the accident, and by the time the medical personnel were tending to me, he was already in the helicopter, heading to Children’s Hospital.
“Honey, tell me where you went,” Beth continued.
“Mommy, I was with Jesus, but my body, down under me, was not breathing. But Jesus said, ‘You shouldn’t worry. You are going to breathe again.’”
“Did He say when?”
“No, He didn’t.”
“What about angels?”
“They were there too.”
“Do you remember anything else, honey?”
“My Barneys were everywhere!”
Beth laughed. We had almost forgotten about the old cloths he carried around instead of a security blanket. Just as he said, the Barneys had been spread across the scene.
“And I remember the room where they worked on me when I got to the hospital. There were many people. Maybe . . . twenty people? They were all helping to work on me. They all said how bad I was hurt. They were very sad.”
“Did that make you afraid?”
“No. I was never afraid as long as Jesus was with me. Jesus told me I should tell you all about it. ”
“Thanks, honey. I’m really glad you did.”
Beth took a moment to reflect on this amazing conversation and what had led up to it. With too much to do at home, she had not intended to come to the meeting today. She was already at the end of her rope in every conceivable way, and with Alex coming home, life was not going to grow simpler. The plan was for her to stay home and for me to come to the meeting, but we changed our minds at the last minute . . . or, rather, God changed the plan. Jesus had wanted Beth there. Jesus had a message for her through her son Alex. Okay, Lord, she thought. You have my attention. I’m listening.
She had begun that morning feeling overwhelmed, wondering how she could keep going. Now it was revealed so clearly through the mouthed words of a child that God was still in control. His grace was sufficient. Alex had never been afraid because he had been sitting with Jesus. Shouldn’t she be resting in Jesus too? The message couldn’t be more direct. In the quietness of that room, Beth gave silent thanks to God. And as in this moment with Alex, we have found over and over that when we are desperate for God, He is everywhere to be found.
Later that day, I arrived at the hospital room to remove Alex’s last few possessions. As I did, a little voice—a beautiful, magical, wonderful little voice—from the bed fell on my ears.
“Dad.”
Joy surged through my heart as I whirled around to look into Alex’s ecstatic, smiling face. He had struggled so hard to say my name a few days earlier, and now he said it with perfect clarity hours before we were set to leave the hospital. Tears of happiness ran freely down my face. Just as Alex found his voice, I lost mine. But that didn’t stop me from making a series of incoherent phone calls, trying to tell everyone what had just happened.
It was three months to the day since I’d last heard him say a word to me from the backseat of our car.
Was it a going-away present or a homecoming gift?
All I could think was, Thank you, Lord! Thank you so much.
Home and Away
The next morning I was back at the hospital. Since we had virtually lived at Children’s for the past three months, the paraphernalia of life had grown to astounding proportions. Several vanloads were needed to make Alex’s move from hospital to home—and that was just our stuff! The real challenge was transporting Alex by ambulance. Beth and the other three children waited at the house while Alex and I stood by at the hospital. It says in the Bible that God will be with us whenever we go through deep waters, supplying the grace we need. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t know that this was only the first of twelve ambulance trips that Alex and I would take in the next few months. Had I known it the day we brought him home that first time, my heart would have broken. In my mind, as I drove toward home with Alex’s ambulance following, we were going home for good.
The prospect of ending the exhausting back-and-forth commute was an immense relief, but even so, it is difficult to convey to the uninitiated the physical, emotional, and relational strain of providing acute care 24-7. Unless you’ve been in the throes of it, imagining it won’t provide the full picture. Like a pencil that has spent too much time in the sharpener, Beth and I were so low by this time that all we could manage was sheer survival. Just keeping the family functioning required more than we had to give, but we had to (and willingly did) give it. Consequently, Beth and I had nothing left for each other. I would never consider divorce, yet I have no difficulty understanding why marriages not based on the Rock but caught up in traumatic circumstances end up there.
We were highly anxious, to say the least, about being directly responsible for Alex’s care in our home, with the “backup” miles away. We had so many questions. What would it be like caring for Alex under our own roof? Could we manage the task, even with the assistance of visiting nurses? What if a medical emergency arose? Then there were questions about Alex. Just how long was his youthful spirit going to hold up? He’d shown so much heart, such a positive attitude, and a fighting spirit, too. He simply had no surrendering within him. How many of us would have yielded to despair after waking up to paralysis and a breathing machine? But was there a limit? Could we, as his caregivers, follow his lead and keep from becoming discouraging influences ourselves? Sometimes it seemed as if he was the one keeping our spirits up.
In the midst of our flesh’s weakness, God had never been more present in our lives, and I did thank and praise Him. But there were so many more needs. I had to confess a great deal of fear and apprehension about the future. I wanted badly for this to work and to prove wrong all the people who said that we or Alex couldn’t handle home care. Deep down, though, I wondered if we were doing the right thing.
Beth was struggling as much as I was. She really needed the Lord’s strength and courage, and she needed her husband’s undergirding support. She was worried about the nursing situation, which was complicated to set up and manage. Even though Beth and I are naturally independent, we had become dependent on skilled medical assistants. They had become our security blanket. There had been plenty of minor emergencies during the hospital stay. What would we do during a “minor” emergency if the trained nursing staff happened to be absent? With Alex on a ventilator, we were constantly mindful of the urgency of his next breath. A few moments of malfunction could mean his death. This thought alone took a constant toll on our emotions.
So this was a gargantuan step. How many times we had earnestly prayed for this day, this homecoming—but as they say, be careful what you pray for. What we gained by being together again as a family we lost in medical skill and immediate professional help.
I continued along the highway toward home with the ambulance carrying Alex a few hundred feet behind. The homecoming nursing arrangement still hadn’t been finalized. Couldn’t these people get their schedules straight? Like most people, even on a good, stress-free day, I have a low threshold for red tape and bureaucracy. This day, with Alex coming home, assuming the full responsibility for his care . . . Help me to chill out, Lord.
I sighed and called another number—a friend who was a nurse. After confessing my doubts and growing anxiety, I asked, “Do you think I should turn this car around and lead the ambulance right back where we came from? Are we making a huge mistake? Maybe we’re just not ready. Tell me what you really think.”
She encouraged me to hang in there, and within a few minutes, I was finally heading up our lengthy driveway. Rounding the last corner, I saw Beth, holding baby Ryan, and Aaron and Gracie, jumping up and down, waving me in. Their glowing faces were just what my heart needed. In those few moments, the worst of the anxiety melted away. I had so much to be thankful for: my wife, my children, and Alex awake and home, mind and spirit intact. Yes, indeed, much to give thanks for.
I parked near the house and was quickly mobbed, but the main attraction soon commanded everyone’s attention. As Alex, strapped to a gurney, was rolled down a ramp, tears ran down our faces. Somehow Alex’s arrival punctuated the end of something and the start of something more. We hadn’t anticipated our response to his arrival and couldn’t stop crying. It’s funny how such a moment can catch you off guard. The presence of paramedics, a respiratory therapist, and other medical personnel soon refocused our attention on the work of moving Alex and all the medical equipment into the house.
Home but Not Alone
We had decorated the walls with brightly colored banners welcoming Alex. Beth had been putting in long hours getting the house ready, tidying the rooms for the constant flow of visitors, and making space for all the medical equipment that would need to be installed. Meanwhile, of course, she had three small children to watch—two of them quite active.
Meals came flooding in like manna from Heaven. The wonderful people of the church did what God’s people seem to do with excellence: the ministry of the covered dish. They had an organized plan for making sure Beth could at least avoid laboring over a hot stove.
Two men showed up to assemble the swing set, which still sat in its boxes these many months since we’d bought the house. And that’s the way tasks would be accomplished around the house for a long time. Whenever there was a job to do, two or more men would show up and get it done for us. Our pastor was a regular visitor, as were so many others who wanted to pray with us and offer love and encouragement. One thing we definitely didn’t have to cope with was loneliness. We felt incredible support, locally and from distant parts.
Other medical professionals began arriving at regular intervals. There was an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a speech therapist, a respiratory therapist, and a cadre of nurses working twelve-hour shifts in our home, generally six days each week. In addition, their supervisor dropped in occasionally to make sure everything was going smoothly and to make suggestions. All of these people loved Alex, and he returned their affection and responded to their instructions with superhuman effort. At least for the immediate future, we wouldn’t be alone. But even with all this help, the hospital seemed light-years away.
The front porch became filled with strange boxes as the UPS truck dropped off new medical supplies virtually every day. The hospital had been our home for three months; now our home was becoming a hospital.
We could never have envisioned how many people would come and go each day. We all but needed to install a parking deck by the side of the house. Even when we were an ordinary family with four healthy children, our home had seemed quiet compared to the hustle and bustle that was now our daily environment. We were thankful for every visitor and every new medical device, however, because we knew these things made Alex’s life better.
Our challenge was to somehow maintain an intimate family circle and be the parents that all four of our children needed. Just having one-on-one time with each child required tremendous awareness and creativity. Time for Beth and me as a married couple—well, that was something of a distant memory. Maybe someday there would be a time when we could take off, go somewhere, and attend to nothing in the world other than nurturing our love and commitment. It was hard to imagine when that day might be.
By the time Beth and I hit our bed on the night of Alex’s homecoming, we were utterly spent. Alex was settled down, our children were in bed, the respirators and other machinery were humming, and a nurse was on duty. Tomorrow would be a little less frenzied, wouldn’t it?
Home and Hearth
The following day I rose from bed immediately feeling the pull of the computer. How had the homecoming gone? Our Internet friends would be eager to hear. Just as I was pressing the power button to log on, Alex’s faint but somehow insistent voice broke the morning stillness.
“Daddy?”
Though Alex was “speaking” to us regularly, it wasn’t always audible. He carefully mouthed every word he wanted to say, working his facial muscles as vigorously as he possibly could. Sometimes there was a little squeak of a voice, sometimes nothing.
I immediately gave him all my attention. He’d been so delighted to be home again, and what he wanted now was for me to start a fire in the hearth. For him, that was one of the exciting features of the new house, something you certainly couldn’t get at a hospital. For months his spirit had been animated by the hope of seeing his dog again, enjoying a fire, and being with his siblings more often. I wheeled him into the family room, where he sat for several hours, just basking in the coziness of his own home. The moment was perfect, because the morning sun revealed five inches of snow on the ground. That put a big smile on Alex’s face.
Now, as he sat in the family room and enjoyed the crackling fire, he could look through the window and see snow collecting on tree branches and birds at the feeder. These were things he loved, and there had been a time when we’d wondered if he would ever open his eyes again to such simple joys. Some would expect him to be looking out at the snow with bitterness, remembering how he had played in it the previous winter. But that simply wasn’t Alex. He had never seemed so pleased.
Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, was a survivor of the Nazi prison camps. He had observed the various ways in which men and women respond to suffering, and he wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Alex was living proof of that. This is why I have often said that at a certain point, Alex became my mentor, my coach for the right attitude in life. If such a little guy can be so resilient through terrible circumstances, then I know that I can face nearly anything. What I have seen in my son is a living demonstration of childlike faith, demonstrating the truth of what the Scriptures say:
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? . . . No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35, 37-39)
A Startling Conversation
During the quieter moments, Alex began to talk more frequently about the things that had occurred while he was away from us. For the first time, I began to suspect that my son had actually died at the accident scene. That possibility fit both the kind of injury he’d suffered as well as the kind of trip he professed to have had—a journey to Heaven itself. In addition, as the days went on, Alex was more insistent about his story. A fabricated account would have become inconsistent and eventually faded. Alex’s narrative, though, was taking on more substance.
Early on, we didn’t expect Alex to remember anything about the accident. But one of my greatest fears was that his memory would be gone altogether or, at best, be erratic. This fear surged almost as soon as Alex regained the ability to form sentences. As soon as he could get the words out, he asked me repeatedly, “Are you my dad?”
My facial expression didn’t change, but when I heard those words, my heart instantly began to ache, as if I had been rejected in some fundamental way. It wasn’t rational, I know, but when your boy wonders who you are, trust me, logic is no match for raw emotions.
Alex gradually became more adept at speaking, and conversations with him became very close to what we all consider ordinary. One of the earliest fluent conversations went like this:
“Are you my dad?”
“Yes, Alex, I’m Daddy.”
“Are you sure you’re my dad?”
“Yes, Alex, it’s me.”
“Because my daddy was killed in a car accident,” he said. “You look like him, but my daddy’s in Heaven.”
“Alex, I was in a car accident with you,” I explained, puzzled by his statement. “I was thrown out of the car, but I did not die.”
“I’m sorry about the accident, Daddy.”
“Me too, Alex, but it will be okay, buddy. God will get us through this.”
“Daddy, the accident was my fault.”
“No, Alex. I pulled in front of a car . . .”
“But I saw the car and didn’t tell you. I asked a question and made you turn around. You didn’t see the car.”
“Alex, I’m the one who has wanted to say I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting to ask your forgiveness for three months. I almost got you killed!”
“Really, Daddy? I thought it was my fault. The devil told me I was to blame.”
My heart was unbearably full as I heard these words. Had he been carrying these recollections all this time? Had he been laboring under a delusion of guilt these many weeks?
“No, Alex. I’m the one who caused the accident. Don’t believe a word of what the devil says. You did not cause this accident. I did. Alex, will you please forgive me?”
“Yes, Daddy. I love you.”
“Thank you, Alex. I love you more than anything.”
As Alex’s powers of speech grew, we began to sense that something far more than a mere coma had taken place over the course of the last few months. Alex began to relate to us details of an extended visit to Heaven. So many supernatural things had already happened that miracles were no longer surprising to us. We were thankful and grateful for every divine intervention, but Alex had begun talking about things far beyond anything we had yet experienced.
As a licensed clinical counselor, I knew exactly what the doctors would say about all this. They would attribute it to dreaming and a child’s imagination, perhaps even hallucinations due to brain trauma. We all know that many people wake up after near-death experiences and have compelling stories to tell. Frankly, early on I didn’t know what to make of what Alex was telling us either. The more pragmatic, “educated” part of me thought, Maybe he does have brain damage; maybe he is imagining things.
But we were three months into a supernatural adventure. We had never been more attuned to the work of the Lord or more conscious of spiritual warfare. Never had we depended so heavily on a God who intervenes in life. My trained skepticism had been tempered by the miracles I had witnessed. If Alex said he’d seen the devil, I was ready to listen with an open mind. Who knew what his experiences had been during this amazing ride? Ours had certainly been unbelievable enough. I realized the problem wasn’t Alex; the problem was me and my inability to believe what I said I believed.
In bits and pieces, Alex’s cohesive story of Heaven and angels began to emerge. I listened to these things with wonder. The picture came together slowly but fully and always consistently. “Alex,” I asked, “what did it feel like to move back into your body after being out of it for a while? That must have felt very strange.”
He only squinted his eyes and formed the word “Ouch!”
I never asked leading questions. For example, I didn’t say, “Was Heaven white, like in the pictures?” Or “Did the angels have wings?” Every piece of information was something that Alex volunteered.
Over time, Alex shared more and more information. Since I don’t have a charismatic background, all of this is new territory to me. I don’t have a theological box to put it in. It is a reality that has invaded our lives.
Crisis
The nurses were in and out in a more sporadic way than we might have expected, but things were working out. For the first couple of days after Alex came home, Beth and I felt comfortable caring for him during those times when we were by ourselves.
Then, on that third day, Alex seemed to be having a rough go of it. We just couldn’t make him comfortable. As the afternoon wore on, he began struggling for breath. The nurse helped to clear his airway, which made things better for a short time. Then he began struggling again. Next his body temperature plunged to a dangerous ninety-one; his heart rate hovered in the mid-sixties. A mucous buildup had developed in his throat, obstructing the trachea. This problem had to be dealt with immediately, but before we were able to clear the obstruction, Alex grew drowsy, unresponsive, and increasingly pale.
We couldn’t handle this crisis, even with the nurse close at hand, and time was fast slipping away. Our only option was to call 911. From the start, I had had my secret doubts about the wisdom of our providing all of Alex’s care at home. As we waited for help to arrive, I couldn’t help but think, Maybe this is confirmation Alex’s situation is too complicated and dangerous to handle at home.
The ambulance arrived, though not in a particularly speedy manner. Thank goodness the professionals were there. The paramedics quickly trooped through the house to Alex’s room, but stopped upon entering. Looking around at all the medical equipment, the head paramedic asked, “What do you want us to do?” Clearly, they didn’t know what to do with someone on a ventilator.
“What do you mean, ‘What do I want you to do?’ I called in and told the dispatcher my son is on a vent and can’t breathe, his temperature is dangerously low, and he’s lethargic. If I knew you would ask me that question when you arrived, I wouldn’t have called 911.”
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Please pray for protection of Alex and [for] guidance. I know that he is in God’s hands and will be okay, but it is challenging to be in a system where you feel like you know more than the people you are relying on. Please know that Alex is in really good spirits. God is in control.
PrayforAlex.com post by Kevin Malarkey on February 17, 2005
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It was a tense moment, and everything—the life of my son—was on the line. The paramedics had no real answers other than to take Alex to the hospital, so they began wheeling him out. The visiting nurse and I accompanied the ambulance to the facility, while Beth stayed home with the little ones.
At the small local hospital, the doctors and other medical personnel tried their best, but it was soon obvious that they, too, lacked the expertise to handle Alex’s situation. It seemed that we knew more about our son’s condition than these folks did. Suddenly we were the experts—we took the lead, and the doctors and nurses watched us carefully. I took on Alex’s care myself, since I knew best how to do it.
To begin with, he was borderline hypothermic and needed to be warmed immediately. We covered him with blankets to increase his body temperature. I fed him through the G-tube in his stomach, monitored the ventilator, and did all the little things we had learned to help keep my son stable. None of this is intended to reflect poorly on the local hospital. We were a bit surprised by how little help they were prepared to give, but we found out that this is common in smaller hospitals. Alex’s situation was such an acute and specialized one that it required the care that only a larger facility could provide. It wasn’t until evening that we got permission to transfer Alex to Children’s Hospital.
A Total Failure?
At the local hospital I watched Alex’s vital signs like a hawk, anxiety coursing through me. I prayed constantly for mercy and help throughout that evening, which I thought would never end. Harrowing—there’s no other word to describe the feeling of watching your son attempt to breathe, knowing there’s nothing you can do but wait.
The ambulance to take Alex to Children’s arrived. What a relief it was to finally get Alex the help he so desperately needed, but on another level, it felt like total failure. For weeks we had set our eyes on the big day when Alex would come home “for good.” We’d built it up, mounted banners, fixed up the house with ramps and equipment, and managed to hold everything together for a grand total of three days. Now we had bounced right back to the place we had convinced ourselves we’d left forever.
On five more occasions during the next year, we would move back and forth between home and the respiratory unit at Children’s. The stability we had sought eluded us. No matter how many times we told ourselves we were fortunate to have our son alive, we still succumbed to feelings of discouragement and, at times, even despair.
Physical exhaustion battered our hope. Many times we were too exhausted even to pray. Thank God for the prayers of the saints! They sustained us when putting one foot in front of the other was all we could do. There were many times Beth and I were little more than walking bundles of frayed nerves. Because of this, it was all the more surprising to see how many people were continuing to look at us as sources of spiritual inspiration—models of living faith. There was no shortage of talk that set us up as heroes or martyrs, profiles in courage. Why didn’t other people seem to notice how stressed, moody, and unpleasant we could be? I could only hope these people figured out the real truth.
Please hear me when I say that our ability to hang in there had nothing to do with our strength, our faith, or any positive attribute of our own. As a matter of fact, these circumstances only humbled us. They showed us not our strengths, but our vast weaknesses; not our faith, but our faithlessness. Courage? We had never needed it more. We lived in fear of what the future might hold for Alex.
This wasn’t about our strength; it was about God’s. He was the only reason we had come this far without giving in to utter despair. We’ve heard about many crises that have destroyed marriages and families. I’m told that when a child dies, the parents very often end up getting a divorce. We struggled with the bad times, and we were forced into absolute dependence upon God, the only refuge we had, because we knew we weren’t strong enough in ourselves to weather such a storm.
Every time we were tempted to give up or to give in, every time we were at the last tiny strand of the end of our rope, God would send human angels of comfort, or He would do something miraculous in Alex’s life. The Lord constantly reminded us of His presence, unlimited power, and gracious love, while the situation itself reminded us of our limitations and weaknesses. On top of all this, the ever-responsive human angels of comfort were often the very people who professed great inspiration through our story! We were the ones who needed to be applauding them. They were the healing hands of God in our lives over and over. How could we possibly have made it through each day without them?
Most couples have the luxury of working out the kinks of their relationship in privacy, but we were living our lives in the waiting room of Children’s Hospital and in the midst of a home that had become Grand Central. I might snap at Beth or some medical helper, or she might be exasperated with me, and then we’d feel doubly guilty—not only had we been rough on each other, but we’d aired our frustrations in public. We had presented a poor testimony of God’s goodness. Many of these times our children were present as well. Quarreling in front of children is never a good thing, but they were right in front of us almost all the time.
It simply couldn’t be helped, given the constant stress level, unless we really became the perfected saints people thought we were. That wasn’t going to happen; we were ordinary people placed in an extraordinary situation, but blessed by a God who supplies our needs beyond all expectations. I only hope that in the final analysis, people saw much more of God than us in this situation. I know they had to see the anger I felt so often—never directed at the Lord, but sometimes at the doctors or at Beth. In the heat of the moment, I made statements to her that I would love to take back.
The Pressure Cooker
I’d love to forget more than a few instances when I snapped at others. One involved an argument with one of the doctors. I was deeply concerned because Alex was struggling to breathe, even on the vent. It was so frustrating to see that his lungs kept filling up with mucus, blocking the air he desperately needed. Couldn’t something be done to keep the stuff from flowing? The doctors were convinced that it was an anxiety problem. They wanted to administer an anti-anxiety medication to Alex.
They got the diagnosis right but the patient wrong. I was the one who needed the prescription, particularly after hearing their prognosis. I knew Alex’s problems were not emotionally based. I was furious, and the more the staff kept making that suggestion, the angrier I grew. What bothered me most was that Alex had been a model of courage and calmness all along. Yet here the doctors were claiming his state of mind was causing what were clearly physical problems.
With my emotional barometer surging, I stepped up to the doctor until we were in each other’s faces. I’m six-foot-two and weigh 220 pounds, and I’m sure I can be an imposing presence when I lose my cool. The doctor was as stubborn as I was, insisting that Alex needed to be on anxiety meds. It was a bad combination. I finally blew a gasket. “Perhaps I should knock you on your rear end and then start jumping up and down on your chest so you can understand how it feels not to be able to breathe!” I shouted. “But you won’t have to worry about breathing because I’ll get you an anti-anxiety medication! Giving my son anti-anxiety meds may help his anxiety, but it won’t help him breathe past the mucous clog covering part of his trachea!”
Believe me, it’s hard to relate this episode from my past. Part of me would rather you listen to those who painted us as spiritual giants. But of course, that would be far from honest. This is a nonfiction book, and it tells a very true story. I want you to know that there’s nothing at all special about me, and plenty inside me that God still needs to fix up. I’m very much a work in progress when it comes to being conformed to the image of Christ, the goal for all of us as believers. But as I work on this book, I always keep in mind Alex’s reluctance to tell his story. His fear is that people will admire the human beings in the narrative, including himself, rather than the only One who should truly impress them.
Days of Worship
As if our local church hadn’t already done more than enough, they decided to do something more—a Sunday-morning service dedicated to Alex. What an honor that was, a chance to magnify the Lord through the amazing things He was doing for our son. The best part, of course, was that Alex was able to be there and to enjoy every moment of it.
After we watched a brief video that told his story, I wheeled Alex down the center aisle. You can imagine what happened then—everyone jumped to their feet. Alex got a raucous standing ovation as everyone felt God’s glory in the moment. Few had dry eyes that day.
Amid the praise, I leaned down to whisper to Alex, “This is not about you.” He rolled his eyes at me—his favorite gesture, which has multiple meanings. In this case, I interpreted it as, “Daddy, that’s what I’ve been telling you all along!” His trial and subsequent experiences had made him wise in the faith, even as a little guy. He said he had been to Heaven. People might question someone else saying such an outlandish thing, but in Alex’s case, no one doubted it because it was all too clear that something had radically changed this six-year-old boy. Someone had brought him back to life when he seemed to be dying. Someone had healed his vertebrae. Someone had awakened his mind and awareness when we were told it was extremely unlikely. And Someone clearly had future plans for Alex Malarkey.
For Alex, it’s all about that Someone. There has never been a moment when he took one iota of credit or reacted to a compliment in any way other than to redirect the glory to God. My greatest goal in life is to attain that mind-set myself, to become a billboard for Heaven rather than a sign of the times.
As the worship service progressed, the spirited songs of praise continued. Alex sang along with the congregation. I kept an eye on his face, because I love seeing him exalt God in music. Soon people began to stand and talk spontaneously about the amazing impact that their interaction with Alex had had on their lives. What a blessed day that was. Our hearts needed it so much.
Many months later at another service, where Alex was singing with the children’s choir, my mind went back to the morning before the accident. Alex was so shy and clingy. In a way, this was a shy child’s worst nightmare—every eye fixed on him. But Alex was a different creature now. He didn’t want to be a spectacle, and we didn’t want him to be one either. If he could have an ordinary experience of singing with the children’s choir, it was a wonderful answer to the kind of prayer we had sent frantically to Heaven when he was in his coma. Having him back was the best we could have hoped for, and if by the grace of God he could have the normal experiences that other children enjoy—well, that was even better.
Not long afterward, there was yet another service—a special Sunday evening gathering at our home. Here was another use of our “dream home” that we’d never dreamed of. Hundreds flooded in from all over central and western Ohio. After parking in our church lot, people boarded shuttle buses that brought them to our home. The church men struck again, setting up a sound system under a large oak tree, in an open area near the house. Pastors from different churches spoke. Then, once again, there was a time of sharing. We kept hearing about miracles, about good things happening in people’s lives through God’s showing His greatness in what the world saw as a tragedy.
Alex stayed off to the side and listened quietly on this particular evening. He was asked to speak, but he declined. After all, he said, this service wasn’t in his honor—it was all about God. The right thing to do was to let God speak. My amazing son sat in the background, where he was most comfortable, and listened . . . as God did just that.
From Alex
Telling Others
Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.
1 Timothy 4:12
My relationship with Jesus isn’t different from anyone else’s who knows Him; He just gave me a very special experience.
I want people to know that God is real and Heaven is real. God is my Daddy in Heaven, and He understands me all the time. That’s how He feels about all His children.
Someday I want to be a missionary. I want to go different places where the gospel isn’t clearly spoken and speak God into people and have God help me do that. I want people to understand that Heaven isn’t a place where you go just because you do good things. You have to ask Jesus into your heart and ask for forgiveness.
If I’m not able to be a missionary, I want to be a catcher for the Houston Astros. Houston is a cool city. I could go to Texas games, plus it’s warm there during the winters. And if I can’t be a missionary or a baseball player, I want to be a comedian. I’m funny, and I have every joke book in the English language.