“Your mother is
taking her last breaths now.” These were
the words of the hospice nurse as my mother died.
It was a moment
that grew in significance as days turned into weeks and the weeks into years. It was a period of minutes that seem
strangely like dream when things go wrong and you are left dumbfounded at the
outcome. It is a place familiar to all
of us … a place where we all think we can always just wake up and the outcome
will change. I was trying desperately in
some way to force by my will: a waking, a change or even an alternative date for
this ending. It wasn’t that my mother wasn’t
ready to die. She had been saying for
days that she “just wanted to be with the Lord.” It wasn’t that we hadn’t said good bye. We had told her just the night before that
she could go, to which she responded, “Can we all go together?” It wasn’t that her death was
unexpected. We had been waiting for six
months for this leaving by the precious person who that had taught us all what
the grace of our heavenly Father looked like in a living way.
Still there was no human effort that could
modify this final earthly separation.
There was no magic trick that any doctor, nurse or family member could possibly
offer to limit the pain, soften the blow, strengthen the body or even postpone
the hour. Affection was generous from
teenagers to siblings, tears were pouring forth as if they had external storage
capacities and touching seemed to speak when language was unknown. It was like every form of normalcy was laid
aside when we entered that room. For the
next hour; senses seemed keener, aching seemed to feel comforting and soft
words seemed to speak forth like an eloquent orator with their deep
connections. Communication came from the
eyes, a touch, even in the motions we made with our hands and sometimes we even
gave them voice.
In middle of all
of this, a voice came forth from a woman I had never met. A hospice nurse had come
to the house just a few minutes before the death of my mother. We just started using the hospice program on
that particular day. My sister had called
to speak with this nurse a few minutes before and after being made aware of the
symptoms she stated, “I will be right over.”
One of the first things she asked about when she arrived was if my
mother was a believer in Jesus Christ.
The answer was to the affirmative and she proceeded to tell our family,
that my mother would die in just a short time and her ministry was to come at times
like these. In fact she prayed daily to
be present and to be used at times such as this one. Everyone in the house was summoned to say
goodbye to my mother. She stated, “Your
mother has just a few breaths left.” We
all kissed my mother amongst prayers both silent and audible and then this
nurse gently said, “Your mother is gone, she has left us.”
Who
is this woman and how did she know the exact moments when life would depart
from my mother’s body? Her gentle words
carried our family through a difficult moment with a graceful manner with a
heavenly intervention, but how did she arrive at just this moment? Why did her factual words seem strangely
soothing? She came with an official
title but what united us was something else.
It was more than one person. It
was as if the thousands of people that my mother knew, loved and blessed were
with us at the moment of her leaving us.
They were there along with our family she held so dear, the nurse who
had just entered our lives and our Lord, the Christ we all knew and my mother
going to meet. Somehow the living Christ and His living body, the church had
all come into this small bedroom, summoned at a particular moment by His
guiding Spirit with the tender care of a Heavenly Father who truly loves His
children. One child of His was carried
home while a roomful of His other children were comforted. Still, I cannot, no matter how I try, describe
how it is possible to fit the church of the living Christ into a bedroom. srm 2006 & 2013
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