Thursday,
March 19th:
By
Jodi Kirk
SCRIPTURE:
Romans 8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
POEM:
POEM #7:
By Terri Gelzer
Comfort came
In a red Christmas mug and her blue car.
On a clear March night,
The sky was bright with starlight.
We looked up.
We breathed in the cold crisp air.
It was still.
It was quiet.
The angels were singing .
Love and laughter rang together.
We were singing.
There were no more tears to cry.
Life was absurd.
Nothing would ever be the same again.
We almost did not care.
But,
The sound of our love and laughter
saved us.
Because she loved us,
and always will.
REFLECTION:
A beautiful friend once told me that we are born twice: when we are birthed into this world and when we lose a parent. Seventeen years ago, I held my mom’s hand as she took her final breath. The moment is burned into my memory, for I knew the exact moment she decided to move beyond.
The doctors, an esteemed team of cardiologists, had just left the room and told my mom that she needed to start eating and that they would be bringing Ensure – a fortified milkshake – with her next tray. They were not really worried, they just wanted to speed up the healing process from her open heart surgery just two days before. Knowing that this was not the news my mom wanted to hear, I took her hand as they left the room and assured her that “it would be okay…”. She looked at me, and smiled, and said, “I am just so tired…” In what seemed less than a minute, her eyes were fixed on a distant unseen light and I heard a raspy exhalation of air and then…silence. I panicked and looked at my sister and ran out into the hall and called for the nurses. “My mom isn’t breathing! She stopped breathing!” My sister and I were immediately ushered out of the room as the nurse called a Code Blue.
In the colorless visitor’s lounge, sitting on a beige wood framed couch, Randi held onto hope and prayed. I prayed as well but I knew that she had passed. I knew that my life would never be the same. I knew that I would never hear my mom’s laugh again. I knew that I would never sink into one of her all encompassing hugs or call her on the phone, just because. We would no longer meet for breakfast on Saturday mornings or go for long walks at Edgewater. I knew that her house – the house I grew up – would no longer feel like home.
I prayed that she made the right choice. As much as I hated losing my mom, I hated the fact that I so struggled with letting her go. You see, although she was only 66 and seemed to be at her vibrant best, she knew something that the doctors and those who loved her best, did not. She knew that her body was struggling…her heart – her beautiful, magnificent heart – was not working the way it should. And in spite of what should have been a successful, almost common place, bi pass surgery, her heart was worn out. Her heart was tired. In truth, my mom was tired. She was ready to slip into a new expansive realm, even though it meant leaving us behind. Even though it meant leaving me behind.
I, on the other hand, was ready to go to the mat and, in fact, had planned to take time off so I could be with my mom for the recovery process. My sisters and I had come up with a pretty elaborate plan dealing with the logistics of her coming home, of her healing. In the midst of struggle and challenge, you fight, right? I mean, in so many ways that is what my mom had taught me…had taught all of us.
No matter what comes your way, you work through it. In moments of greatest testing, you fight through in order to reach the other side. My mom was a SURVIVOR! She was – and is – the strongest woman I know. When my dad left, leaving her with five kids to raise, she fought to keep our family intact and put bread on the table and a roof over our head and somehow managed to infuse our lives with a sense of joy and gratitude. She was a 25 year breast cancer survivor. She put her kids through college and went back and earned a degree herself. She fought sexism in the work place and became one of the first woman managers at the very same bank that had paid her half the salary of her male counter parts when she began working in the late 60’s. She fought prejudice and stood by my sister and against some family members and our very own minister when he refused to marry Terri and David, an interracial couple, in 1973. She was feisty. She never gave up. She set the bar high and expected everyone to figure out how to climb over it.
And yet, it was in her last moment that my mom taught me one of the greatest lessons of all…sometimes, in the midst of struggle, it is okay to let go. You don’t always have to fight to discover the light. Sometimes freeing yourself from struggle allows you and others to soar. Although I wasn’t ready to say good bye to my mom – are we ever ready to say good bye to our loved ones? – I know her dying birthed in me a sense of independence, a broadening of compassion and a deepening of my faith. In my mom’s eyes, I was perfect and beautiful. She always believed in me and celebrated my gifts like no other. Even in her final earthly act, she demonstrated her profound love and steadfast confidence in my strength and abilities. She had fought for so long, because of me – because of my brothers and sisters – but in those last moments she knew it was finally okay to let go because she had taught us to fight for ourselves and knew that we were more than fine.
Since my mom’s death, I have faced many struggles of my own. I try to face them as my mom did … with courage, strength, love and a belief that all things happen for a reason. Mom taught me and continues to remind me that we are never alone in our struggles. There is always a gift in the problem…and sometimes we discover our strength when we are most vulnerable.
PRAYER:
Healing Creator, thank you for those difficult and challenging moments – the moments of heartache and struggle – when grace and purpose and understanding is revealed and owned. Thank you for guiding is through the storms of our lives and shepherding us to safe harbors. Let us know the strength that comes through openness and vulnerability. Help us to know when it is time to let go and when it is time to fight against problems that feel too big. Shower us with your love, your wisdom and your mercy. Amen.
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