News, Citizen Profile, Gerald H. Glidewell, Jr., LaSalle Parish, La. ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Submitted by: Craig Franklin of The Jena Times, Jena, LaSalle Parish, La. Wednesday, November 22, 2000, page 7C A Times-Signal Feature "Citizen Profile" A Very Special Salute Olla man tells of going to heaven and seeing God This week for our Citizen Profile article, we take a look at an Olla man's final three years of his life. It's an unbelievable story of courage and faith, with trips to hell, heaven, and back to earth before finally making a final trip to his eternal home with God. This incredible story causes even the strongest atheist to reconsider his unbelief, and gives undoubting assurance to those who do believe in God, heaven and hell, and life beyond this earth. Gerald H. Glidewell, Jr. was born on September 3, 1942, and lived his entire life in Olla. Many Jena residents may remember him because for years he worked for Humphries Motors in Jena, where he retired from in 1992. During his childhood, he contracted polio, which resulted in one leg not growing properly, and him having to wear specially made shoes his entire life to make up the difference in length. On August 8, 1965, he married a Georgetown girl named Dot. The two stayed true to each other for 35 years, until he passed away on October 30, 2000. Mr. Glidewell had two main hobbies. One was collecting army memoriabilia and merchandise, and the other was working in his shoe shop, located just up from his residence in Olla. It was one Thursday, back in October of 1997, that he had been working at his shoe shop before coming back home to eat lunch with his wife. Mrs. Dot said that after repairing boats all morning at his shop, he was glad to come home and enjoy some potato soup for lunch. "After we finished eating, I went into the living room to watch the news," Mrs. Dot said. "Before Gerald set down, his face turned red and he told me he felt funny; and then, just a few minutes later, his speech became slurred." Mrs. Dot rushed him to Hardtner Medical Center in Urania, where he was treated at the emergency room. While there, Mr. Glidewell had a seizure, and then appeared to go into a semi- coma - not being able to speak. Just before he went out, he didn't even know his on wife of 30 plus years. After working on him for some three hours, the decision was made to transport him to Rapides Medical Center in Alexandria. The doctors there were prepared to encounter a man who was unresponsive, but then a surprising thing happened. While Mrs. Dot was getting Mr. Glidewell's billfold to retrieve the medical cards from it, Mr. Glidewell suddenly looked up and told his wife, "Mama, my lights came back on! "When the doctors got to him, he could talk once again and appeared much better. Still, a series of tests were ordered which showed Mr. Glidewell had a tumor on his brain, the kind that would always come back. The only good news was that it wouldn't spread to other parts of his body, but the bad news was even with surgery and removing the tumor, it would always come back. Mrs. Dot then questioned her husband as to what had happened when he was unconscious for several hours. "He told me before we knew what was wrong with him that had he died during this time, he would have gone to hell," she said. "He said the Lord showed him hell, and he described it as dark with lots of crying. He then said he told the Lord that he didn't want to stay there, and then his lights came back on. That is when he awoke and told me that his lights came back on." Mrs. Dot said that her husband had been baptized back in 1992, but said during that moment while he was unconscious, he was awakened to the fact that he had never really been saved - or had a life changing experience with Jesus Christ. "He thought he was saved, but when he saw hell he knew he wasn't," she said. "So that's when he asked God to save him. "Just four days after being admitted into Rapides, Mr. Glidewell had his first of four brain surgeries to remove the tumor in a three year period. Despite being weak from the entire ordeal, on November 9 of that same year, 1997, the Glidewell's were in church. They attended Bank Springs Baptist Church were Rev. Bobby Cruse was the pastor at the time. That day, the church had a healing service for Mr. Glidewell. Mrs. Dot said that she'd never experienced a service where the Spirit of God was so prevalent. "All of the men of the church went forward to pray for Gerald and anoint him," she said. "After the service, Gerald said that he felt the Spirit of God flowing through him and he had lots of energy. However, the other men in the church were very weak from the ordeal. They were all sweating and said they felt as if they had mowed the lawn in 100 degree weather. "From November until the end of December, Mr. Glidewell took radiation treatments on his head. Family and friends took turns in transporting him to Alexandria for his treatments. Mrs. Dot said that other than him being tired, he wasn't sick very much, something that he attributed to God and the amount of people praying for him. However, in January of 1998, he did become sick again and was taken to see a specialist in Shreveport. The doctor there said that he could put a disc in his head that would give him about three months to live. "They told him to go home and prepare to die," she said. "But he told them that he knew how to die - he wanted to know how to live. "Although the Shreveport doctor tried to discouraged the couple, they took it upon themselves to go to M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas, to see if anything else could be done. Once there, they were told that the disc suggested to be used in the Shreveport surgery was out-dated three years ago. The doctor also said that he would do as many surgeries as possible on Mr. Glidewell, just as long as he did not become an invalid. On February 23, 1998, Mr. Glidewell had his second brain surgery by the doctors in Houston. He came through it real good and was sent home with chemotherapy pills and an IV. For the next year, Mr. Glidewell would continue with check-ups and chemotherapy pills, and seemed to be doing very well. He was definitely out-living the projected time of the Shreveport doctors of just three months. Then on February 28, 1999, he began to cough, with what he thought was a severe sinus infection or possibly the flu. When Mr. Glidewell began to cough up blood though, he was immediately taken to the emergency room at Hardtner once again. Chest x-rays revealed that he now had lung cancer. Even though the brain tumor didn't cause the lung cancer, the doctors said that if he lived long enough, lung cancer was a secondary cancer associated with it. Back to Houston he went where he was treated with radiation for the lung cancer. Once back home, the following five weeks consisted of trips everyday to Alexandria for continuous treatments. The doctors were amazed that he wasn't real sick, just tired. By the 11th treatment, the lung tumor showed to be shrinking. Then in June of that same year, Mr. Glidewell told his wife that his sinuses were bothering him again. He started taking medication for this, but the coughing never relented and he continued to stay very weak. In August of 1999, Mr. Glidewell had gotten to the point were he couldn't walk by himself anymore. He'd also stopped working and would not eat. Complaining of severe headaches and eyes hurting tremendously, the pain was unbearable. Also during this time, he'd received a free plane ticket to go to Colorado to visit his nephew, Mike Duke, but because of his condition, he didn't know how he was going to make the trip. "I remember passing by and hearing him praying and moaning, 'Lord, please let me go to Colorado, just one more time, I won't ask to go again,'" she said. "After this, he took three sinus pills and laid down to sleep. "When he woke up, he walked into the living room and said he was hungry and felt very good. For many days he'd not eaten, and now he was eating a huge breakfast. In fact, after eating the large breakfast, he asked his wife to cook the same meal again, which he hungrily ate the second time. "I told him I was going to take me three of those pills so I could feel as good as he did and he looked at me and said 'Mama, those pills won't help you'," she said. "That's when he told me about the angel. "Mr. Glidewell told his wife that while laying in bed sleeping earlier, he had the feeling as if someone was watching him sleep. He said he opened his eyes and t the foot of his bed was a beautiful angel. "He said he knew it was an angel and wasn't afraid at all," she said. "He said the angel looked at him and smiled and said, 'Not yet.', and then she was gone." "This was truly a miracle from God," Mrs. Dot said. "For a week Gerald hadn't felt good, not even good enough to eat, but after his visit by the angel, he ate enough for two people and then got out in the yard and did the weed eating. "And on August 9, 1999, Mr. Glidewell boarded a plane in Monroe as he took his long awaited trip back to Colorado, where he stayed for over two weeks. During his stay in Colorado, he wasn't sick, had a great time, rested a lot, and said he felt very close to God in the beautiful Colorado mountains. After returning home, that September Mr. Glidewell began to feel weak and sick again. A trip to Houston revealed that the brain tumor was back. In October, a third brain surgery was performed and he once again amazed the entire medical staff as he woke up from the surgery, feeling good, hungry and talking. The staff said he was the first patient they had that did that well. For the next several months Mr. Glidewell did extremely well. Check-ups in January and March of 2000 revealed no sign of either cancers, brain or lung. He continued his process of chemotherapy treatments until May when it was discovered the lung cancer was back. During one of the treatments that month at the cancer center, he became very sick and had seizures. In July, he traveled back to Houston, where doctors there reported the brain tumor was back. A fourth and final brain surgery was performed on him on July 17. Following the surgery, Mr. Glidewell's speech was messed up pretty bad, and he couldn't say what he wanted to say. He was also much weaker than before, and the seizures came more frequent. Slowly, his body began to succumb to the cancers as he grew weaker each day. He continued with treatments but by the time he went back to Houston that September, he couldn't walk once again and he had no use of his right arm. After several tests it was discovered that the brain tumor was back and had moved to the top of his head. Surgery was no longer possible because of its location. All the doctors could do was send him home and prescribe home health services. Mr. Glidewell was upset with the grime prognosis, but it didn't cause him to fall apart. On September 22, Mrs. Dot had to get a hospital bed moved into their home for her husband and the hospice care came and signed him up. On Tuesday, September 26, the hospice worker came and talked with Mrs. Dot for a couple of hours. She told of how Mr. Glidewell was completely out and for the past several days he hadn't talked or eaten anything, or been in any way responsive. As they sat in the living room talking around 1 p.m., they started hearing talking coming from Mr. Glidewell's bedroom. The two rushed into his room in time to witness a miracle again. Mr. Glidewell was awake, in his right mind, and telling his wife that he needed to talk with his sisters right now. "I asked him which one and he said both of them," she said. "So I called them to tell them that their brother needed to talk to them right now and believed me until I held the phone for him to talk. He told them both to come over right now and they said they were on their way. "While they waited for his sisters, Mrs. Dot asked her husband where he had been? "He said he'd been walking and talking with the Lord," she said. "He said he asked the Lord if He had any cowboy boots for him to wear and he said the Lord just smiled and said 'You don't need any shoes anymore.'" Mr. Glidewell also told his wife that while in heaven, he'd went fishing with his Aunt Vedie and was singing praises to the Lord. Mrs. Dot asked him if he'd caught any fish and he said "No, it was too beautiful to fish." She also asked him what he had been singing, and he said the songs "Blessed Assurance" or "This is my story, this is my song". Mr. Glidewell told his wife that heaven was so beautiful that he wanted to stay, but the Lord told him to come back to earth and talk to his family and children, then He himself would come back and take him back to heaven. "He said that his Aunt Vedie said 'Son, go back and talk to the family. I'll wait right here by the river for you,'" she said. "I also asked him if he would open the gate for me and he said, 'No, I can't. You have to do it all by yourself." Mr. Glidewell told his wife and family that if they were not in heaven, he wouldn't miss them, but he would know who was not there. Over the next four days, Mr. Glidewell talked almost non-stop with his family and many friends who'd heard of the story and stopped by. Each time, he recounted the story of his visit to heaven and him walking and talking with the Lord. His message to everyone he spoke with was the same. He needed to know if they would be there someday too and to not make the mistake and wait as long as he had to find the Lord. On Friday morning of that same week Mr. Glidewell told his wife that he had done what the Lord had instructed him to do and now he was just waiting on the Lord to come and get him. "His message to everyone was that each one has to help themselves to get to heaven," she said. "He said that no one but the Lord can help you get to heaven and said that he would be waiting by the beautiful river for each one to come. One of his last words to his family was 'Don't wait too long to be a soldier for the Lord.'" After this miraculous recovery and mission statements, Mr. Glidewell slowly went back to sleep. On October 30, around 3:15 in the morning, the Lord did come back just as He had promised, and took Mr. Glidewell to his eternal home. Some months prior, when he was sent home by the doctors to die, Mr. Glidewell wrote a poem for his family, put it in an envelope, with instructions not to open it until after his death. The poem is included below and was read at his funeral: Hallelujah By: Gerald H. Glidewell, Jr. When you read this I will be with Jesus so don't "cry" Rejoice - Rejoice I say don't cry Just stand up for Jesus and shout Hallelujah I am going to be all right now I love my wife and son Family and friends For with that I am a very rich man I would like to have my Jessica raised in church I have enjoyed this life in this old world For that I thank God.