An Odd Moment in Time

Yesterday was an odd day for me. Twenty nine years ago my mother passed away at the age of 57. I turned 57 this past February. It was a day where I wondered what would become of my little tribe if this were to happen to me. The day was also filled with trying to objectively see what I had contributed to the world around me. And the day was spent pondering the arbitrariness of who goes when and how. I tried to stay busy, tried to fill the day working and arranging and shifting around. Anything to put my mind in neutral, but it did little good.

Mom spent the last several months in a wheelchair because the cancer had attacked her bones in the back and hips making mobility almost impossible. The final straw was the liver cancer, which is dreadfully painful. She spent a great deal of time trying to manage between the pain medication and being lucid. It was a harbinger that a few months before my bride and I were married she had a mastectomy to get at the breast cancer. Five years of peace and cancer-free, then the return in the bones and finally the liver. She knew the final fight was over for several months.

She and I visited about all of this and I would find out later that she only remembered some of it. She attempted to teach me even in the last impaired days. She had me read Psalms 116, "I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them.." and then later in the same psalm, "Precious in the eyes of the Lord are the death of His children.." I read this psalm at her funeral, it still strikes so deeply within my soul. A psalm of fear and glory, of overwhelming grief and reassurance, a psalm of trauma and peace. I cannot read this, even now, without tears in my eyes. This single event changed my entire scope of prayer and suffering, salvation and perseverance, it toughened me for the years ahead when I would have to summon all the lessons for the fight against this detestable disease in my daughter.

So in this moment, what do I feel? Well, the pain has subsided. There are events now that I wish she could see, my grandkids, kids-in-law would all make her proud. She would say I have received more than I deserved. It makes me want to hug them all close, to imprint on them my love for them and my love for our gracious God. My youngest never met my mother, my older ones probably don't remember her all that well either. But I want my grandkids to see her through me. My love of self-styled spiritual study came from her. She never went to college, but taught generations of younger women at church. My devotion to things spiritual came from her, she was a spiritually disciplined person long before it became a fad. The 5:30AM study where she drew close to God and through prayer, the rest of us. She was a warrior within the church, cajoling, confronting all who needed a word; a constant pursuer of things spiritual.

I will tell you she was a tough-minded woman. She ran her home with untiring vigilance. I have tried to to imagine what she was like as a mother-in-law, or a grandmother, but nothing comes to mind. Do I share some of this? I am told that I do.

Have I made an impact in the world around me to the same degree that she did? I don't know. I know that I have tried. Will people remember my teaching, or my take on this world? This blog might be some sort of marker. Will my kids laugh when they remember? Will they hold bitterness? I hope not. It is a hope for us all that kids tend to remember the good times and as parents we tend to remember our mistakes.

Anyway, the day has passed. Navel-gazing is done. But the effort always leaves me slightly unsettled.

Godspeed, it is a strange moment for me.
Don