Living without you: Day 1

There comes a point where the body is perhaps too exhausted and no matter how much chemical you pour into it, the damn thing just refused to cooperate.  No, I’m not talking about my mother.  She’s gone, you missed her.  

Last night I saw her change for the worse.  In matter of moments she made the transition towards being completely bedridden.  Well to me it was a matter of moments but I’m not a medical professional.  The morphine made her very disoriented and my mother was (in her better days) anything but confused.  I helped my father lay her down on the bed and make her comfortable.  I tried to lower the bed but she sat right up.  Eventually, she calmed down enough and we lay her down.  I leaned down and told her to stop fighting to let go and just go home.  She didn’t need to fight anymore.  

Earlier that night my dad had gone to the Friday night healing service at our church and the whole body prayed for her and our family.  I didn’t get to see this.  But I know that God does work all things for the good of those who trust him and are called according to his purpose.  Seeing her like that nearly broke me.  I’m not sure how I kept a straight face or a calm voice when I spoke to her.  This woman sitting before me did not bare any resemblance to my mother.  Eventually she fell asleep and just watching her mouth, open and gasping for breath broke my heart.  Before leaving I wished that she would just go home already.  

I drove away thinking that I would sleep in a little late before heading to my parents to stay with her so my dad could go do things he needed to do.  I didn’t expect to be greeted by my other half, kids, or my cats when I got home at half past one.  My cousin told me earlier that he woke up early in the morning because he had dreams of large gates made of gold which he could only surmise as the golden gates.  All day we’ve had an out pouring of love from family and friends.  So the day my mother went home turned out to be an amazing day with gorgeous weather and wonderful family and friends.  

I am exhausted.  As I sit here writing, her hospital bed is gone.  The hospital equipment that sat on the porch unused are also gone.  The oxygen sits silent with the wires piled on top.  The offensive sheets that had been used to wrap her body in has been removed from my sight.  All around me are pictures of her.  She smiles back from them all at various times of her life.  

I have wrestled with my decision to move back into her house with my family.  Now I know why I had to do this.  Yes, my dad and I need each others company in her absence.  But more than anything, I need to be surrounded by her things.  There are so many traces of her that will have to be removed.  But there is time enough for that.  Right now, I just want to let my heart throb and ache as her absence washes over me anew.  I want to purge the image of her slack mouth gasping for breath, her torso heaving, the sound of her wheezing as she tried in vain to do the simplest of things, breathe.  So I stare at her pictures and her smiles.  

Mommy, I miss you.  I have been loved all day.  I have touched your things, worn your things, messed up your kitchen, threw out your sheet, let your grandchildren make a mess out of your carpet, let the baby spill cereal all over your floor, and who knows how many other things you’d find wrong.  I would give anything to hear the sound of your voice or hear you laugh.  All I have are my memories and all those pictures.  I miss you.  I’m happy you’ve gone home.  I know one day we’ll see you again.  But this gut wrenching pain I feel when I stop and the silence falls around me is too unbearable.   

You know, God did give me beauty for my ashes.  Despite the pain and sorrow I feel at the loss of my mother, I got two and a half months to pour love into her.  We never had the ideal relationship.  But for the last two and a half months, we got the chance to love and cherish each other.  God gave me the chance to say good-bye and love her the way only a daughter can.  I am grateful for the time I got to spend with her.  The sound of her voice happily introducing me as her daughter to everyone at the hospital still rings in my ears.  I wonder, in the end, was she waiting for me to let her go?  Did she and God plan it all along, this perfect exit as soon as I was able to let her go? 

This is my first time writing without her.  Every entry I have made was written sitting beside her since this journey began.  Mom, I let you go because your father wanted you home with him.  Now I just got to figure out how to untangle myself from the throes of this grief that is squeezing the life out of my heart. 

To be absent in the body is to be present in the Lord

My mom went home to be with the Lord August 16, 2014 @ 4:15 am.  Bye my beautiful crazy lady.  I am going to miss you but because I have hope in Christ, I know when I see you, hopefully I'll be a really old lady. 
 

 

Do Not Stand at My Gave and Weep

By Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

It makes me think of Mama’s house

Conversations with a five year old in general are very strange.  There are moments where they surprise you by the depths of their understanding and other times, it’s like getting to the platform to watch the train pull away.  

So my mother’s nurse said to prepare ourselves.  She said it won’t be long now.  The morphine was opened.  In the space of a week, I’ve watched my mother disappear.  Her shell is lying in her bed struggling to breathe.  She is in there somewhere behind the morphine haze.  She must be.  She summoned up enough slurred words to tell me to be quiet.  That was not too long ago when my sister-in-law tried to administer the morphine.  

Faith is a funny thing.  All you need is enough the size of a mustard seed and you can move mountains.  Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) sums it up better than I ever could, “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

I recently watched a Clint Eastwood movie called “Hereafter” which explores the concept is there something after death and offers a conclusion that there is.  This morning the first post I saw was a story about an atheist raising godless children.  I didn’t really have the energy to finish the article.  It was 5 in the morning, I’m barely awake at that time.  The only thought in my head at that hour is my commute to the gym.  Real thinking starts when I start running.  Maybe that’s why I’ve grown fond of running, it at least gives me the illusion that I can run away from thoughts.

The article made me realize that by raising godless children she was depriving her children of something very simple, hope.  The movie suggested something bigger, inexplicable awaits us when this life ends.  But as I told my son, when you invite Jesus into your heart and ask him to stay with you forever, you have the assurance that when it’s your turn to leave this world, you will get to be with him forever.  When a loved one dies in Christ, we have hope of being reunited with them again one day.

I read an article earlier today by a man whose name I can’t recall but he claims to have experienced the afterlife.  He claimed that he felt this enormous sense of all-encompassing love.  I shook my head a little.  Maybe that’s what’s given me this headache today, all these thoughts running amuck in my brain.  Where did we miss communicate to the world that God is anything but love?  We call ourselves Christians so we should at least give the world an accurate representation of Christ shouldn’t we?

So after spending a day literally crying nonstop, on and off, I finally found myself in the car with my family heading home.  My oldest seemed to have a sane moment and it seemed safe to talk to him about his grandmother.  I had explained to him during and earlier visit to see my mom that she was on hospice care.  It was to make sure that if she got sicker, she didn’t have to go to the hospital.  Did he remember the bed and all the other things the delivery people dropped off at the house?  How could he, it was a very exciting day for him the day she finally got released from the hospital.  (Ever wonder why people get released from both hospitals and prisons?)

Well the cat was out of the bag now.  We told him that she was very sick and that she wasn’t going to get better.  I think we tried (only as adults can) to simplify for him the concept of death but instead it was slowly beginning to sound too complicated.  In the end, we tried an entirely different approach.  We reminded him how much his Dida loved Jesus.  He said yes, she really loves him.  I explained that when she was his age, 5, she invited Jesus into her heart to stay.  So now that she’s really sick, and since she won’t get better, she’s going to go to heaven and be with Jesus forever.  He asked sincerely, can’t she come back?  No baby, when you go to Jesus it’s forever.  But if you invite Jesus into your heart to stay, you can be with him one day too.  He’s 5.  You have to kind of repeat yourself to make sure he not only heard you but hopefully understood as well.  To this he replied, it makes me think of Mama’s house.

We were completely stumped.  So we tried a few times to encourage him to explain himself.  He said when I think of heaven it reminds me of Mama’s house.  

Now the atheist mother raising her godless children could probably take off my head for filling my son’s head with something so fanciful or fantastical because it doesn’t prompt him to think and question.  He’s five, he’s got plenty to question already.  

I will say this in my defense, my son is very close to his grandmother.  When he finally comes to live with her next week, he will see things with his eyes that no five year old should have to see.  It will be unavoidable for him to not see her mouth open and slightly twisted as she tries to breathe.  He’s like her, he notices everything.  He will notice how labored her breathing is and how horrid is the sound of her wheezing.  The youngest will be oblivious but this experience, this loss he is about to experience will change him in ways we can’t imagine.  

What I gave him was hope.  He will have to watch her slip away from him and there will be a void in his life shaped like her.  I still miss my Dida and she was sick with Alzheimer for over a decade before passing away.  To this day I think of her.  Even as I was fixing the bed in the spare room upstairs for my Aunt’s visit I thought of her and how she taught me to make hospital bed.  I shared with him the hope that I have, the hope that has held me up even as the very ground beneath my feet has slowly crumbled away.  I gave him a piece of my faith.

Someone once remarked how am I so humble?  I’m not humble, just humbled by God’s grace.  If I had lost her suddenly, I don’t imagine that I would have been able to get up off the floor much less breathe.  But I have been given two months to grieve.  Every step of the way, God has whispered in my ears.  He had brought people into my life and the lives of my family in this time of our need.  And we have relied on the kindness of strangers.

I think of the nurses at the hospital who cared for her.  The EMTs who brought her home.  This is a woman of God and the light in her shone the brightest I have ever seen.  Amidst this tragedy, I have seen God’s hand draw together and bind the hearts of this family even tighter together.  He has given me an opportunity to show my true colors by opening my parents’ eyes and letting them see me as I am.  I am not the person I used to be two months ago.  I don’t think I can ever be that person.  

I think of my sister-in-law.  How perfect is God’s timing?  How perfect is this woman that God brought into our lives?  She’s a nurse and her presence has been a source of reassurance for my dad when the hospice nurse makes her weekly visit.  God is taking her home but he gave her son the heart of a loving wife to call home and find comfort in.  As I’m preparing to say good-bye to my mother, I am grateful that God brought into my life a sister.  I never realized how much I would need her.  You’ll never convince me that’s random, eHarmony or no harmony!

I think of my cousin the doctor.  The path he has taken to get to where he is was unorthodox perhaps but in that hospital room I saw the physician he will one day become.  I saw glimmer of his father in him.  And I remember my uncle as a truly remarkable doctor the few times I went to see him for various medical related things.  He didn’t have to, but he stayed with her and I know that his presence in the hospital went a long way to putting her at ease for having to stay there.   

I think of my co-workers, the one that held me while I cried like an insane person and the one who let me just talk because it’s hard not to talk.  I’m sorry when you come back from vacation I might have bad news rather than good.  But thank you, for your compassion.

We left our home and church over 2 and a half decade ago and moved to a foreign land.  All we had, were each other.  We were turned aside by family members in the name of religion.  Yes, I know hard to believe but did you know that the church in Bangladesh where I grew up actually banned my dad from having anything to do with its members?  It was painful but then I see how God has kept us from harm and covered us and moved us through some amazing blessings.  

I got to witness the face of true love.  As I watch my dad take care of her, I am deeply moved by the love that I see pouring out from him for her.  Those moments when she is not in discomfort, I have seen glimpse of the depth of her love for him.  I’ve gained understanding that I lacked before.  I’m still understanding or trying to figure it all out.  Maybe that’s what I’m trying to do.  

But I will admit to this, Christ has been the rock beneath my feet, the only solid ground upon which I have been standing.  Everything around me is only sinking sand and he has yet to let go of me or my family.  With every breath in my body, I will give thanks to God above.  Even amidst all this, I have hope and it’s eternal.  One day I will see my mother again and I will get to abide forever in the arms of Jesus.  

As my father has already said, in the meantime, we will cry as we must.  We must let her go because she is no longer ours to keep.  God has given us more than enough time to say our good-byes.  Go mom, just let go and go home to be with your father in heaven.  I’m ready to let you go.  Thank you for the love you gave me.  I’m just sorry you’ll never find out about my blog or get to yell at me for putting your business all out there over the internet.  Or that you’ll never get read a single word I’ve said thus far.  

I’ll love you forever crazy lady.  My God, I’m going to miss you!

Love story...a tribute

^“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸ Love never fails.”  ~1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 (NIV)

I found this picture of my parents when my mother went to Bangladesh with my dad.  I once jokingly said to my mom that although my dad is not a maharaja, he built his version of taj mahal for her.

I once said in my youth that I didn't want what my parents had.  I always viewed their union a bit too "unromantic" for my tastes.  It wasn't until much later that I would start to realize that how far I was from the truth.  They knew each other from a very young age, having gone to school together.  When they grew up, my dad wanted to marry her.

For 38 years, they built a life together.  Now as I watch them together, I am starting to see the people that I missed in my parents.  I see the way she tells him she loves him before she goes to sleep as if she wants to make sure the last words she speaks to him are these, just in case.  I hear the note of tenderness in his voice when he calls her honey.

I watch as he prepares food for her, helps her, takes care of her.  His hands and body move in a functional manner.  The look on his face is one of absolute tenderness.  On this man's face, the one I have always known as father is a look that I am unable to express even with my wealth of vocabulary.  The love burns so bright that it scorches if you dare to look it full in the face.

I have much to learn about love from these two people I have been fortunate to call parents.  It's more magnificent than anything I have ever heard, read, or seen anywhere.