Friday, August 11, 2006

anniversaries and shepherds (long and perhaps sad)

so yesterday was one year since the death of my mother. my sweet friend kirsten asked how i was and i told her i was fine b/c it is just not tied to a day for me. wade and i are just odd about anniversary/holiday type things anyhow and it is much more seasonal than anniversial (probably not a word). it is bizarre how time can lessen and intensify pain simultaneously. i guess it is that over time it is less frequent that you feel the loss, but when you do feel it; do you ever feel it. it makes me think of how my great grandfather would try to explain his "phantom pains" he had as a result of losing his arm. i could never grasp how something could seem to be there but not be there at all, and hurt you though it isnt present. i feel this sensation when i log online and my "buddies" list pops up my mom's screen name with a phone icon next to it. at first when this happened someone told me that i could just edit it from my list and i thought i would get to that sometime. then over time i realized i just couldnt take it off. it has a slight sting each time i pay it attention upon signing in, which is not always, yet i just dont want to remove it. it is in this way i feel a phantom pain, i guess. she is there but she is not and it hurts somehow.


i did allow myself to relive the day of her death yesterday, i suppose as an exercise of trying to keep the anniversary. i am not much of one for visiting graves, it seems so futile and vacant. so i remembered the two plus weeks of staying by her side at my nana's house as she died. she took her time, for sure. they said it would be less than three days when we brought her home from the hospital. but of course she stubbornly proved them wrong. if there is anything the women in my family are known for, other than contentiousness, it is stubbornness and wrong-provingness. such legacy of traits, indeed. i took turns with my nana, staying with her in her room as she slept and awakened depending on her levels of morphine at the time. i always wanted to push her morphine button when she would awaken b/c she was so near death and completely out of it. she would be so irritated and angry and then fall right back into a dying sleep. it was scary for me, she would try to pick fights about things she saw in the room that i didnt see. all of this in the dark room of a dying person is really very daunting and lonely. i had read the hospice book and researched myself, and was prepared mentally for all of these things, but just not emotionally, i guess.

the most poignant period of time in her death was, perhaps obviously, when she actually took her last breath and the few hours right after that. that morning she had shown many of the signs that death was hours away and the hospice nurse called the other family memebers who wanted to be there. we were surrounding her as a group for probably two hours, in the last hour no one seemed to move at all. we only stared at her ever slowing chest as it struggled to heave up and down. she would stop for a moment and we thought the time had come, all looking at the nurse with awe and wonder, our faces all in unison asking, "was that it? was that the last breath?" she would shake her head saying, "not yet, you will know". and then the "death rattle" would again emit from my mother's throat and we girded up for more horrific waiting. finally, she moved her eyes in a way she had not all day and took this deep, deep breath and with it came a gush of tears out of her eyes. she fell still. i was reeling. i had not read anything about tears, i had anticipated many things in this process, but not tears. i was unprepared and immediately upended, completely terrified of the meaning of those tears. my black and white death expectations were spattered into grey questions and dark fear. had she met her Judge without a wedding garment on? was my Lamb to her a devouring Lion? was my Cornerstone to her a crushing tower of rock? O, God will i have no peace in this until glory?

shortly after, our pastor mike called and asked if he could come by my nana's to visit with wade and me. when he arrived, we went into the room with my mom and i immediately began to tell him about her tears and my questions and my worry. he said the most peace-giving, life-giving, fear-calming words i have ever heard. he didnt try to make her death as perhaps an unbeliever innocuous. but he didnt leave me only with the expected "God does all for good", which, though true, is not all to this gospel of grace. he reminded me that as she was dying several people had asked her if she loved Christ and asked her to repent and she had affirmed that she did both. we dont know her heart, only God does, but we have the testimony of the thief on the cross and God's covenantal, ineffable grace. but the tears, i persisted, what about the tears? crying his own tears of compassion for me and awe at our Creator's grace, he said to me, "courtney, did it occur to you that your mother might have, for the first time in her life, have entered into the glory of God? that brings us tears just to speak of it, and she may have been seeing it." the peace that passes all understanding eased my heart and i have not looked back upon that specific dubiousness since that moment. i will never have the words to explain to mike how he shepherded me in a way i had never known before. do i know she is with Christ? no. do i hope for it everyday? absolutely. but regardless, i was reminded of hope and grace and what i look forward to one day tasting deeper above.

3 Comments:

Blogger keely said...

Very well said.

7:56 AM  
Blogger Clint said...

Thanks for sharing, Courtney.

12:43 PM  
Blogger corbs said...

Thank you Courtney, we love you.

2:39 PM  

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