When dad passed it was from a sudden massive heart attack with no time for goodbyes. With Mom it was different. For the past year and a half, for the most part, it has been difficult day by day process...and even on the very last day of her life here, it was very hard to watch such a lover of life, fight with all she had to live even though it was time for her to leave.
In her last moments she still was able to smile that precious smile at the nurses who attended her. I know she really didn't want to leave us. I also know that at some point she realized that God was wanting her to come home to heaven to be with him. I told her it would be okay for her to leave...that I would be alright....
Death has many faces.
I wondered at it this time.
I have stood by those I did not know and watched death take them. I have lost my dad and was called by a nurse from the ER to join my family in what would be remembered as the longest walk I would ever take to this day. I have stood beside the bedside of both parents-in-law and marveled at the supernatural strength that came to both of them in their journey home.
But with Mom...I wondered. I felt such a tearing away. I had so many questions....as if I had never faced death before. So many things unanswered. False hope...and despair. I would go to see her one day and she would be in bed asleep and I would expect to find her the way I had last seen her and I would go in and she would be in the dining hall waiting for me. Smiling and alert.....
It was hard. One of the hardest things I had ever experienced.
The past month...especially hard. December was her birth month. December, my daughter and her son's birthdays. One of her son's anniversary. It was Christmas. Her favorite holiday of all.
Daily I traveled to see her. Times when I would go in and she would be so sedated that her head was almost on her chest from drowsiness. I would watch as she began to refuse food and then as she rapidly went from feeding herself to having to be fed...until she finally could no longer swallow. I who had cared for her every need....was not able to do anything. I felt so helpless....so hopeless....so weak...and afraid. I realized that I was powerless against this and could do absolutely nothing to prevent her discomfort.
I watched and prayed for mercy.
We kept in touch several times a day. I went to see her every other day and visited at least an hour or two. We got her a cell phone so she could contact me anytime she was lonely and finally she called every morning after breakfast and again at suppertime. This is the only way she could remember to call me. But.......the late night phone calls from her ceased. The quality visits grew shorter. The days seemed longer. Day and night for over a year I have been awakened with a thought of...."will I get that dreaded call today?'
For some reason I believed that she would go in her sleep and I would get a phone call that she had left this world. But God had another plan. He decided that she would go with me, one of her sons and our spouses attending her.
God was gracious. He helped us to call all of her children and she mouthed the words I love you to each one of them and also to her brother the morning she left. But God's time for her to leave would not be long after.
My brother and his wife gave me a break so I could get some rest. I left and returned 3-4 hours later after having come home and slept awhile. When I got back, Mom was still struggling but my brother and his wife were so tired they left...but within 35 minutes afterwards, she took her last breath and passed through the veil into her eternal home.
I looked up and around....wondering..."are the angels here?" I saw her, that her breathing changed and I called to my husband..."Mom is getting ready to leave us." And there it was...her last breath....so easy... she breathed... her last.
I felt numb. I had my husband go out to get the nurse and they confirmed time of departure. And from that moment...the world began to spin.
I was able to sing yesterday. All alone in my dining room... I sang a new song....about the Valley of the Shadow... how the Lord has been faithful to me and how I love him. I can't even remember the words, but I remember the comfort of the Holy Spirit that wrapped all around me.
On January 31st it will be 1 month since Mom went to heaven.
