As I turn my thoughts toward the past, the harsh realities of this hospital room seem to fade and an earlier, youthful version of my mother comes into focus…
It is the wee hours of the morning, but sleep won’t come, so I stare at the ceiling and listen to my mother’s labored breathing. How unnatural she looks, lying motionless in a hospital bed that seems to dwarf her slight body. In life she was a dynamo, constantly in motion, always doing, never one to be still. Now she is comatose. According to the neurologist, the damage caused by the hemorrhage in her brain is irreversible, leaving her partially paralyzed, blind, and unable to speak. Without a miracle her death is imminent; probably sometime in the next few days.
Seeing she had five children, I cannot help wondering how many sleepless nights she spent nursing one or the other of us through a series of childhood illnesses and accidents. I know she sit up with me, in the hospital, after I suffered a brain concussion and a broken arm. All night long I continued to ask the same nonsensical questions – “Where am I? What am I doing here? Why do I have this cast on my arm?" Not once did she grow impatient, although my concussed brain could not long retain the answers she so patiently gave me. In light of that, it seems only fair that I should be sitting with her now. It would be easier if she were conscious so we could talk. Unfortunately, her only response the past five days has been to lightly squeeze our hands. She hasn’t responded at all in more than twenty-four hours and the doctors don’t think she will.
Maintaining my bedside vigil, I realize I have a choice. I can focus on this tragedy and mother’s impending death, or I can revisit the memories of the rich life she so freely shared with those she loved. I choose the latter and thus begins a journey that gives birth to an overwhelming sense of gratitude. As I turn my thoughts toward the past, the harsh realities of this hospital room seem to fade and an earlier, youthful version of my mother comes into focus…
It is a bitterly cold Colorado morning. Although the sun is bright, glistening off the fresh snow, it yields no warmth. I have followed mother into the backyard where she struggles to hang a steaming basket of laundry on the clothes line. Her fingers are red and chapped from the cold, but she works with a practiced skill, fast but not hurried. The socks and underwear, as well as the pants and shirts, freeze almost as soon as she hangs them on the clothes line. Thinking about it now, I can’t help but wonder why she didn’t wait for a warmer day. Of course the winters are long in Colorado with few warm days; still waiting wasn’t mother’s way. If something needed doing she wasted no time getting at it, especially if it was something her family had need of – like clean socks and underwear.
My earliest Christmas memory takes place about this same time. I was five, maybe six-years-old. The folks must have had a lean year for the only presents Don and I got were a Santa Claus coloring book and a box of forty-eight crayons. Knowing how much Mom loved to give, I’m sure that our meager take must have grieved her, but there is no disappointment in my memory, just joy. In later years there were more expensive gifts, but I can’t ever remember being happier than I was while coloring at the kitchen table, as Mom busied herself at the counter preparing Christmas dinner. I suppose most folks would have considered us poor but that thought never entered my mind. It’s hard to feel poor when your home is filled with love.
Mother hacks a cough, drawing me back to this hospital room and I lean close to make sure she doesn’t choke. After a moment the hacking stops and she resumes her labored breathing. Picking up one of her limp hands, I hold it while tracing the purple veins on the back of her hand with my finger. I hate what has happened to her and I hate the thought of living in a world where she is no longer present. I can’t help thinking that when Mom dies I will lose the one person who always believed in me, no matter what crazy stunt I might have pulled or how big a mess I might have made. Even when she knew the worst about me she always believed the best!
To make it through these difficult days, I have put my grief in a box and clamped the lid down tight. Unfortunately the lid keeps coming off and this is one of those times. Alone with Mom, in this hospital room, I allow the tears to flow. There are no wrenching sobs – maybe that will come later, maybe not – for now there are just silent tears slipping down my cheeks to lose themselves in my beard.
I have asked the Lord to completely heal and restore her or to take her home quickly. There is no way that I want her to linger in this condition. Even in good health she had grown homesick for heaven, especially since my father’s passing almost two years ago. She and my sister visited my father’s grave regularly to put fresh flowers on it. The last time they did so was just a few days ago. As they were preparing to leave, Sherry watched as my mother kissed her first two fingers and then placed them on my father’s name where it was etched in the tombstone. Softly she whispered, “I’ll always love you. I hope it won’t be long until I see you.”
With a determined effort I turn my thoughts to an earlier, happier, time. Mom and Dad have stopped for the night at a no name motel somewhere between Friendswood, Texas and our cabin on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. She has telephoned me to let me know that they are safely situated for the night. On the phone, Mom is gushing with childlike enthusiasm. Their room has a small table where she and Daddy can play Dominoes, and an in room coffee maker. And the people at the front desk are so nice!
After Mom bids me good-by I sit for a moment, holding the now silent telephone in my hand. I can’t help smiling at her childlike enthusiasm. I’ve stayed at enough no name motels to know that the best of them leave much to be desired. And the people in the office are seldom friendly, except in the most cursory way. Yet, Mom is as excited as a child on Christmas morning and that’s one of the things I love most about her. The simplest things could bring her such joy.
Brenda and I have been married for forty-two years and she cannot recall ever having a cross word with Mom. She has only the fondest memories of her; a scrapbook filled with the good times they shared. One of her favorite memories comes from 1967. We were serving our first church in Holly, Colorado, and the folks came for Christmas. Mom took one look around Brenda’s sparsely furnished kitchen and then went to town and came back with a set of mixing bowls, telling Brenda, “You can’t be a cook without mixing bowls.”
When Brenda was rushed into emergency surgery, after suffering a life threatening hemorrhage following Leah’s birth, Mom set with me while the surgeons worked to save Brenda’s life. She didn’t say much, at least nothing I can remember after all these years, but I’ll never forget the strength her presence provided. Holding her limp hand now, I pray she senses my presence and is comforted by it. It seems such a small gesture, futile almost, but as she taught me nearly forty years ago, there is a remarkable power in presence. Bending close, I brush her forehead with a kiss and whisper words that don’t come close to saying what’s in my heart. The love I feel for this remarkable woman is beyond telling.
Concentrating on an image from Mom’s last visit to our cabin, I bring it into focus. I see myself opening the door to the small guest apartment just a crack. Mother is on her knees, her Bible open on the bed before her. It isn’t the first time I have found her in prayer, and in those private and unguarded moments her face is full of feeling, as she pours out her heart to the Lord she so dearly loves and so devotedly serves. The intensity of her intercession always humbles me, and I listen in a kind of awe as she bombards heaven on behalf of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Who, I wonder, will take her place? Who will pray for us when she is gone?
Mom loved the work of the Lord and she supported it, not only with her prayers, but also with her finances. Each month she sent a check to the Division of World Missions in Springfield, Missouri to help support her second son, my brother Don, who serves with his wife Melba, as life-long missionaries in Argentina. In a second envelope she mailed a check to Richard Exley Ministries. After Dad died, I encouraged her to consider cutting back on her giving since her income had been significantly reduced, but she wouldn’t hear of it. As far as she was concerned nothing was more important than the work of the Lord. What was any earthly thing in comparison to that?
During the past three or four years we have had some financial challenges in the ministry. I’ve had knee surgery and a debilitating back injury and both caused me to cancel several meetings. Of course when an itinerate minister is not preaching most of his income stops. I never mentioned any of this to Mom but she seemed to know. On more than one occasion she called and asked me if I needed some money. She had so little and yet she was offering it to me. Thankfully I never had to take her up on her offer, but it did my heart good to know how much she cared. And I have no doubt that she would have done the same thing for any of her children. Knowing Mom, she probably made the same offer to each of them.
The long night finally ends and to my surprise mother is still with us. For four more nights my two brothers, my sister, and me take turns spending the night at the hospital. Like me, they each have their own special moments. Finally, on Friday morning, December 19, all four of us are in mother’s hospital room at the same time. We gather around her bed and talk quietly. The Hospice doctor comes and goes, telling us that Mom will probably linger a couple more days, maybe as long as a week. After she leaves, I notice that the pulse in mother’s neck is beating erratically. Don places his finger on her pulse trying to get a count, but gives up when it becomes apparent that Mom is leaving us.
For another minute, maybe two, she lingers, her breathing becoming shallower with each breath, then she is gone. We had prayed that her home going would be easy and it was. There was absolutely no crisis. She simply stopped breathing. One moment she was trapped in a body paralyzed by a severe stroke and the next she was in the glorious presence of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! For more than fifty years she could only hear with the aid of the most powerful hearing aid and even then she was severely hard of hearing. Now she is not only free from all sickness and suffering but she can hear! Praise the Lord!
Mother's passing has left a huge hole in our lives and we are grieving deeply, but our grief is richly seasoned with hope – the hope of eternal life!
If you appreciated today’s blog please email it to a friend.
To subscribe contact ECC1212@aol.com
Check out the Straight from the Heart pod casts @ www.RichardExleyMinistries.org
Richard Exley Ministry
PO Box 54744
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74155
(918) 459-5434
www.RichardExleyMinistries.org
Comments