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Mike, Montse, John Paul and Catherine posted a condolence
Dear Sarah and Family,
We are keeping you, Daniel and the entire family in our thoughts and prayers!
Much love,
The Vroman family
Z
Zoe posted a condolence
My thoughts and prayers go out to you and your family. Sarah, take care of yourself.
R
Rose Vitug posted a condolence
I love you dad, always and forever. This town has so many memories of you, wherever I go. It was a beautiful day for you today at your funeral, burial, and memorial at the sunset. I was so happy to meet the people that were your friends and truly cared about you. I am praying that you are where you wanted to be, with God, and can begin your eternity with all your new friends in the next life. Love, Your Daughter, Rose.
c
clare finelli posted a condolence
i remember seeing you and Daniel praying together after Mass. Such a union of two souls is rare to see. In your marriage, one plus one equalled One. I hope to see you soon.
S
Sarah Sonrise (wife) posted a condolence
It’s been a month now since my husband’s death. Here is the story of the day he died, as I remember. It was a beautiful, holy death but it was unexpected.
At least I was with him at the last moments. I still have my pillow talks with him even after death. I’ve named my guardian angel after him. I know I’m not alone. Yet, after thirty-seven years of marriage: my lover, best friend, trusted confidant, and true soul mate had a sudden and massive heart attack. Yes, I miss him. It’s only natural.
I am so very grateful to God that I could enjoy those last weeks with him. He must have had a premonition because for weeks previous he took me down “memory lane”, so to speak. We walked along the beach and watched the sunset from the rocks where we first met. We prayed in the little mountain church where we were married and we visited the scenic forest cabin where we started our family. One of the days, Daniel drove into a cemetery and sighed. He said he just wanted to rest.
It was a beautiful time together. I remember him watching the cloud patterns from his favorite funky rocker on the porch. That same rocker I had dragged out to the garbage collection site twice but he painted it and said some day it would be my favorite chair. It is.
Fond memories of Daniel playing with his precious grandchildren, especially Baby Gemma are vivid. Some mornings it almost seemed like the House of Nazareth with all the love. It was romantic, spiritual and peaceful.
It was also an impressive time for Daniel to pass on his own legacy. Often in his writings, he would press his hands to his heart and announce that he simply had to write even if it meant all night to get out what news was in his heart. He still went to the gym and mass the next day.
His last week, he took me to a forest he had planted some fifty years ago by planting little tree saplings. He told me that we could show our grandchildren the forest and place holy cards on the site praying that it be used for a good and noble purpose. I returned to the site after his death and buried his obituary and holy cards on the property.
A majestic redwood tree provided a perfect niche to discretely place the holy cards. Our grandchildren were in the car watching. They had just been talking about getting a new basketball. Carefully stepping around poison oak and stinging ants, I laughed. There was an old basketball at the very foot of the tree in the remote woods! I tossed it to the boys. We all laughed. The basketball was way too old to use but the irony of divine providence tickled our souls.
The day Daniel died we were having our own lovely picnic after mass at a Retreat Center. Around noon he complained of chest pain. I blamed some sprayed grapes and told him he needed to cut out his coffee in the mornings. He went back into the chapel on the mountain retreat grounds to pray. He’s prayed every day after mass for some fifty years, so it was nothing out of the ordinary.
However, when I knelt next to him he was breathing very heavily. I reminded him that it was a Women’s Silent Retreat and that we should go into the Cry Room for babies where we wouldn’t disturb anyone.
It was at that moment that I think there was a battle for his soul. He looked at me with the eyes of the devil. I also saw in an instant how it would be to take care of an older man who could have turned grumpy over the years. The look was chilling.
He sat down in the Cry Room and I started to rub his back. Daniel turned to face me, quietly asserting: “Sarah, get a priest. I’m having a heart attack.”
I ran to the next building where a priest was preparing notes for the next conference. He held up a tab of paper upon which I should write because of the Silent Retreat. Instead, I shook my head and cried out emphatically, “Father, Daniel wants you. He thinks he is having a heart attack!”
That blessed priest jumped up immediately. Without hesitation, he ran to his office, fetched his little black box of holy oils for Extreme Unction and raced down the hill to the Baby Cry Room. I stood outside for a few moments if Daniel needed the privacy for confession.
Upon entering, I saw Daniel being anointed with oil in the form of a sign of the cross upon his eyes, ears and lips. Daniel smiled with the most peaceful look and happily exclaimed:
“If this is what dying or having a heart attack is like, it’s SWEET!!!”
The mystical presence of God’s sacramental grace was palpable. Daniel looked up at the loyal priest and pleaded, “Father, may I die in church? Please let me die in church.”
“My son,” responded the priest, “We have just exercised extraordinary means. Now we must exercise ordinary means. I’ll call someone to take you to the hospital.”
The priest dismissed himself to call a driver and ask prayers of those attending the conference. Daniel turned to me and smiled, “That priest sure knows his theology. But I don’t want anyone else but you to take me.”
Now I really treasure his words of confidence.
It looked like Daniel was going to drive when we got to the car but he was only retrieving his usual bag of vitamins, water and peanuts he carries to church and the gym. He pushed the passenger seat back and sat down.
I asked him, “Daniel, where do you want to go?” By those words, I meant: “Do you want to go to the hospital or home?”
Smiling, he replied: “You know where I want to go.”
He pointed to heaven.
I started to drive on the windy mountain road back home. The hospital where our daughter works is in the same direction.
Daniel told me to slow down a bit while I was passing a car with a trailer. I defensively excused myself as being in the wrong gear or some self-justification to which he responded: “I understand. I understand.”
A few more turns on the mountain road and Daniel cried out: “Padre Pio, take my Guardian Angel!” Or, he asked his angel to take him to Padre Pio. I’m not sure exactly what he said because I was still driving. Suddenly, Daniel gasped, threw his head back and emitted the death rattle.
I screamed. I cried. I patted his chest with one hand while driving with the other. I prayed hysterically. I yelled at him. I pleaded with him. I called on God and a litany of saints. I told him I loved him over and over again and then called 911,
The dispatch operator told me to pull over but there was no shoulder that was safe to pull over in the traffic. Up about a mile I was desperately relieved to see a police car. Attempting to pull over, I was dismayed to see there was no one in the vehicle.
I finally reached the summit of the mountain and pulled over to a parking lot. 911 told me to pull Daniel out of the car and put him on the ground to do chest compressions. I knew he was already dead and I didn’t want him to be on the pavement with little pebbles. I just wanted to cuddle and stroke him. But I did the chest compressions.
“The paramedics and ambulance are on their way. Now do 600 chest compressions.”
“One, two, three, four, five six…I can’t count! I have to pray! Jesus! Mary! Joseph!...”
The recorded dispatch message for 911 that day must have been the litany appeal for all the saints interspersed with me telling Daniel I loved him.
When the paramedics and fire truck arrived, one of the crew put his arm around me and pulled me from Daniel’s body. They tore open his shirt and pressed the electric paddles on his chest.
They asked me questions about his death. They were placing his body in the ambulance but I was concerned about costs, especially since he was already dead. I wanted to drive but they took my car keys and said I could ride in the ambulance with Daniel.
I called my daughters to meet me at the hospital. When the traffic was thicker I told them they didn’t need to hurry or turn on the siren because Daniel was already dead but they said they had to do their job.
I was shaking so hard it was difficult to dial on the cell phone. At one point I remember asking God to have mercy on the phone company. I felt like I was a character is a script like an understudy who was bellowing out the wrong lines.
I called the priest because he had told me to contact him. He thanked me for calling and told me it was the right thing to do. He would come right away.
We arrived in the ambulance at the emergency room of the hospital. The doctor attending told me that he was “edified” by our Faith and that it certainly seemed as though Daniel had died the way he would have wanted to die. I agreed while I was trying to rearrange Daniel’s clothes for some dignity.
Meanwhile, the staff had hooked him up with more equipment. Suddenly, a nurse leaned over Daniel’s neck and announced to the doctor: “There’s a pulse!” The monitor started beeping with waves connoting life!
I screamed, ran over to Daniel’s feet and started thanking Daniel for coming back to us! I thanked God and all His Saints and holy angels. I started rubbing his feet and laughing so joyfully.
Unexpectedly, the doctor put his hand in the air or in some way gave an abrupt signal to turn off the life support system.
The monitor went into a flat line. It was as if I was watching a movie in slow motion with the sound turned off. The doctor told me something but all I could see were his lips moving very closely to my face. I had no clue what he was saying. I was in a state of shock. I knew Daniel had died. The nurse said there was a pulse. Machines were making noise but now they were dead.
Dead.
Daniel lay staring with a vacant look and smile as though his brain was really dead. My mind could not comprehend what had just happened but my faith knew that he had already died. Later my daughter who is a nurse told me that it was an example of the extraordinary life support system. They could put air inside his lungs and the electricity would make his heart beat but that after twenty or sixty days, depending upon state law, I’d have to decide to “pull the plug”. The doctor had spared me.
Daniel had no primary care physician so his body would have to go to the morgue. I was allowed to stay and stroke his body. We covered him to make him more presentable to the family visitors. My daughters arrived with the grandchildren.
Pictures, hugs, and weeping ensued. My son-in-law asked me the time of his death. He had had a mystical feeling of reconciliation with Daniel while he was working in his home at the time of death. I believe Daniel had started his passion, so-to-speak, at noon and died around 3:00, as in accord with Our Blessed Savior.
The Catholic Hospital had no crucifix when the priest arrived for the blessing of the body. We prayed anyway. I attempted to help Daniel make the sign of the cross but his arm was too heavy.
I was trying to explain to the children that their grandfather was not in any pain right now. His soul had left his body and that it was like cutting your fingernails or your hair. It didn’t really hurt. We were going to bury his body in a few days. Then I added: “Do you have any questions?”
My six-year-old grandson looked at the white blanket covering his grandfather’s body and innocently asked: “If we are going to bury his body. What are we going to do with his head?”
We smiled through our tears.
Baby Gemma who always wanted to be held by her beloved grandfather, did not want to be next to him. After three open heart surgeries within her first two years, she too probably doesn’t like hospitals.
After our daughters and grandchildren left, I was able to stay with Daniel’s body to kiss and caress him. This favor was immensely healing in my sorrow. It is all such a sensually tangible experience: much like being a midwife for death. I could lay my head on his chest and hold his hands, stroke his head and apologize for my many failures as wife and mother and friend. I could tell him how much I loved him and, yes, beg, God to resurrect him right then and there for a wonderful witness to the Faith.
Daniel, however, did not resurrect. After hours of mourning physically, I could feel his body fluids receding. He started to bloat and become rigid. After six or seven hours, a nurse told me it was finally time for him to go into the morgue.
One of his jobs was to work in a walk-in refrigerator every day at 5:30 in the morning when he was a health food truck driver. So I could joke with him that it was his time again to go back into the refrigerator. It was also my time to leave. I left his body but remain united in soul.
Around midnight, a very understanding security guard led me back into the hospital chapel where I could make the Stations of the Cross in honor of my beloved husband.
Just think. Since Daniel faithfully united his Stations of the Cross every day for up to 50 years for the souls in purgatory, what does that mean about the multitudes of souls who will helped be released to heaven? Let’s see. That’s 365 in one year and multiply that by 10 years and you get 3,650 souls each decade. Multiply that by 5 and that’s 18,250 souls!
Now “my” Daniel is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. He used to sprinkle the site every day he drove by and pray for the souls in purgatory. Let us join him in our prayers.
Church Militant, Church Suffering and Church Triumphant:
Praise God for one man, one Faith, and all eternity!
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