In Loving Memory

On Sunday, March 6, 2022, I said goodbye to my mom for the last time on this earth. It was a one-way conversation as she had already slipped out of consciousness. Whether she heard me or not, only God knows. But I’m still glad I told her one more time that I loved her. We loved her. Each one of us.

The Wednesday before, I’d had a coherent, normal conversation with her over the phone. She asked me questions about the new house. Have we really been living here a month already? But of course, we still can’t find things, and she knew I had misplaced a bag of mailing envelopes and Randy couldn’t find his level to help put up shelves and hang pictures. She asked if we’d found those and then came up with a suggestion on how we might make the house warmer. “Could you insulate the ceiling in the basement?” she asked. Like I said. A completely normal conversation. The only problem was, I didn’t know if would be my last with her.

Sunday night I knew she was actively dying, and I went to bed praying for her to pass peacefully. I didn’t know our prayers would be answered so quickly. I awoke at 5:45 Monday morning to these words from a song by MercyMe called “The Hurt and the Healer” – the phrase from that song that woke me was “I’m alive. Even though a part of me has died.” And I thought, “Did she pass?” Was my mom already in heaven?

I discovered later that morning that she had slipped into the arms of Jesus somewhere between 2:30 and 3:45 a.m. Two hours later, I believe God whispered to my heart that she was more alive at that point than she had ever been on earth. And her life with Him is just beginning. It was hard to feel sad when you wake to the news in that way.

But I have had my moments. We buried my mom today – March 16, 2022. Her funeral was Monday, but we had to travel back to the place she had lived so many years with my dad to bury her beside him. It’s the first time I’ve watched a cemetery lower a casket into the earth.

She didn’t really look like herself. We spent Christmas with her in early December and the body in that casket did not look the same. But sometimes that’s just the way death is. Sometimes the person looks every bit as much like they always looked. Recognizable. Sometimes they suffer long enough that they are changed.

Of course, in heaven, I know she is truly changed, and I wonder which age she will resemble most when I see her again one day. The slide show the funeral home put together from the pictures we sent spanned her 98 years of life, from early childhood to elderly and everything in between. It’s funny. My mom was about 35 when I was born, so to me she was never “young”. Ha! I say that now thinking 35 is so young in comparison to where I am now. But as a kid, I never thought of her as young until I looked at the many photos of yesteryear.

We are all born into a family, hopefully a loving one, and make friends and grow into the person we were meant to be. At least that is the hope. My mom had a long life to become the person God made her to be, and I think He created her to be a pretty special lady.

My mom was an avid listener. She asked questions and wanted to hear all about you. She made a point to know the names of every grandchild, and her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-step-grandchildren. I learned things about her this past weekend that I didn’t know. I saw a woman of deeper faith than she talked about, though she had no problem letting you know she was a believer. She just thought about things more deeply than she talked about out loud.

And she prayed. I thank God for giving me parents who gave me a legacy of prayer and of faith. My mom and dad prayed every day for their children and grandchildren and probably their great-grandchildren. They didn’t know all of their great-grands as some live far away. But that didn’t stop their prayers.

Sometimes my mom wondered why she was still here on the earth. I would wonder the same thing if I live to be 98 1/2 years old and can’t do much. She could take care of herself until the last few days, and she was very cognizant until then too, but she didn’t get around much and her biggest joys in life besides her family were putting puzzles together and playing Words with Friends with me and a grandson-in-law. We both really miss seeing her name pop up on that game. It was how we could tell she was still okay. I know she is more than okay now.

“Why am I still here?” was a question I think we would all ask in her situation. Why did she live so long when there seemed to be so little she could do? And yet, God still had a job for her here until early that Monday morning. She still talked to her nieces and grandchildren, and children, and friends, and she still had people who needed her prayers. Prayers that only she could pray in her specific way. Those prayers live on like incense before the Lord. They do not die just because her soul and body are no long in the same place.

I take comfort in that. I know that my prayers, my husband’s prayers, and my parents’ prayers along with the prayers of many others are still awaiting answers. I’d love to know what my mom is seeing right now.

With all of the good that her release from this life brings for her, it still carries with it loss for those left on this earth. I miss her. I watch the slide show from the funeral and cry. And when they played, “I Believe in a Hill Called Mount Calvary”, I cry every time. Music has an emotional connection for me. And she loved that song, along with so many others.

I hope all who knew her and loved her will catch how much faith in Jesus meant to her, and that she longed for each of us to know Him like she did. She might not have known how to put that desire into words, but she wanted it more than anything. She’s waiting for us, and I if we believe and trust Jesus the way she did, when it is our turn to leave this life, I can bet she’ll be one of the first to greet us at the gate. Right after we’ve been held by Jesus’ everlasting arms. The arms that carried her to heaven this past week.

I will miss her always. But life is short. I will see her again soon.

~Selah