I’m so thankful for this picture. It helps me remember my time with Mom that afternoon at Longview, Mom’s Assisted Living home (her third stop after she fell and broke her hip in April). It was the last time we would enjoy together. Of course I didn’t know that then.

It wasn’t hard to fill our weekend together. Besides the tea, we checked out all the assisted living nooks and crannies; I saw where Mom played Bridge with her new friends; we shared lots of good meals in the lovely dining room; we attended the church service; and the weekend was capped off with dinner at my niece’s home. It was the first time Mom had gone out.

Spring and summer were like a roller-coaster ride. Roller-coasters are not my favorite. Mom so wanted to return to her lovely home of over 50 years. But something always delayed it, like another trip to the hospital in July. Truly I felt she was in a better place, a safer place in the assisted living. But she didn’t want to be there.

Then the text arrived the first Sunday in September as Bill and I were driving to Utah for vacation. My sister was taking Mom to the E.R. Her blood pressure was dangerously low. It was decided to install a pace maker. Mom never recovered. By Wednesday my sisters and I had all gathered around her hospital bed. We spent 5 days in the hospital by her side, 5 days in her home with the support of hospice, and 5 days planning her memorial service.

I am thankful for those days. They were hard; they were sacred. They are burned in my memory.

As Mother’s Day was coming closer this year, the sting of my emotions was real. The stores were overflowing with suggestions on how to love your Mom well. In the past, I combed through the cards looking for the perfect one. I thought long and hard about the gift that would best communicate my love. But this year was different. I hurried past those springy displays. I didn’t even want to look.

This I know …

Emotions are not good or bad, they just are. They signal where I am in the healing process. I need to acknowledge and embrace them; they are a part of the journey not the destination. If Jesus was a man who was very familiar with sorrow and often experienced grief, should I think my humanity is more able than his?

Isaiah 53:3, ” … He was … a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;”

I’ve been well supported by our extended family and by our church; I’ve been comforted by friends; I’ve gone through tissues; I’ve thought and re-thought those days last summer. Questions and more questions proliferated. My friend Nancy, a hospice nurse gently explained what Mom was experiencing that last week and how the hospice plan was the most gracious in those days. I know God is sovereign. I’ve known the presence of the Lord.

Psalm 34:18 a, “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted;”

And yet the roller-coaster continued.

But now … This I’m experiencing …

Kayla, the college-aged daughter of our friend Norman, penned the words recently from an old hymn, Whatever My God Ordains is Right at the end of a blog about lessons she is learning. Her Mom died of breast cancer about two years ago.

God met me in the words of this hymn. I’m stepping off the roller-coaster. Peace is my new reality. Whatever my God ordains is right; to Him I leave it all.

 

Then there was this made-up story my creative friend Brooke shared about forgiveness. She gave me a word picture of a pond (the issue) with two friends in need of forgiveness and repentance. One on the east side of the pond, the other on the west. In her story the one walked around the pond, put her arm around her friend, and looked at the pond from her side. It was different. The ripples seemed to be flowing in a different direction; the shade of the tall trees reflected differently. The same pond offered a new picture. Because of their friendship, because of new perspective, because of the humility of forgiveness and repentance, the friends were reconciled.

Mom and I did not agree on the best place for her to live. My choice was the safer (in my opinion) Longview. Her choice was her familiar home. Although I knew her desire, I never “walked around the pond” to look at it with her eyes. I’m sad about that.

But even in that, I’m experiencing peace. I’m accepting my limited understanding. I’m allowing grace to flow because I’m believing whatever my God ordains is right, to him I leave it all.

If you’d like to listen, this is the link to Sovereign Grace’s rendition.

I needed Nancy, and Kayla, and Brooke, and the words of that old hymn. We need each other.

Are you too in the midst of a hard grief? What are you learning? Let’s help each other.

“This I declare about the LORD:
He alone is my refuge, my place of safety;
he is my God, and I trust him.”
Psalm 91:2, NLT