You were probably wondering when I’d get around to posting my thoughts on the recent unexpected turn of events in my Mom’s condition.
I guess 3:42am is the perfect time…
Right now Mom is sleeping and I am on night watch making sure she takes her medication and is able to stay as comfortable as possible during the night. It’s hard to imagine that just a week ago Mom was pretty much able to get around on her own without supervision. She was able to have normal conversations and was able to eat normal food. But over the next few days she slowly but surley lost more and more of her ability to breath and the ability to care for herself. By Saturday she was being watched and cared for 24 hours a day by those of us in her immediate family in conjunction with Hospice. When Dr. Jilani gave his official word on Monday it had already set in that we were dealing with a shorter time line than any of us had imagined.
So this is our first week of caring for someone that will be going home to Jesus soon. How soon we don’t know and even Dr. Jilani told us, “For your sake as much as for my sake I can’t give you a time line.” That means we are faced with the struggle between life and death from now until we say our final goodbyes. Our perspective has changed and it has changed rapidly. One minute we lived out each day never thinking that it could be her last; now we pray each night for just a little more time to spend with Mom. One more laugh, one more hug, one more tender kiss on her cheek before our Loving Savior ushers her into a paradise so filled with joy and peace that there are no tears and no pain and no long nights like tonight, wondering how you’re gonna make it through until morning.
Don’t think it was easy for me to write that last sentence because despite the fact I know where my Mom’s soul will be, it doesn’t change the fact that I will miss her the rest of my days on earth. For now I probably shouldn’t list all the reasons why I’ll miss her (mostly because that would end the post here due to a short circuit in the keyboard from all the tears) but suffice it to say that the reasons are plentiful and depth of her influence in my life is unimaginable. It’s hard to think that a day is soon coming when I’ll reach for my phone to call for her advice on a homework assignment and realize that there will be no answer. Or that a day is coming when my wife walks down the aisle and looks as beautiful as Mom did on her wedding day (despite the spilled milk on her dress). Or that a day is coming when I show my kids one of the rare pictures of my Mom and tell them that Grandma Deborah was an amazing servant of King Jesus, was named after a judge in the Bible and had touched many lives on her short time here on earth.
But for now our family is living in the present and we are all learning how to care for Mom in a way that will most glorify Jesus, despite our sad hearts and heavy burden. We have already learned a lot in the process. We’ve learned that we need to work together as a team. We’ve learned that sometimes you have to make the small victories just as important as the big decisions. We’ve learned that the Bible and prayer have a whole new meaning when someone you love is dying. We’ve learned that even though our pespective has changed our God has not. He is still the same God that gave a blind man sight and made a lame man walk. He forgave the prositute and ate with tax collectors. He walked on the water, calmed the storm and asked some terrified disciples an important question:
“25He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’”
-Luke 8:25a
