My Mom (part 1)

Out of all the days since my Mother has been in Heaven, Mother’s Day is always the hardest for me. I have ruined the previous two for my wife by just being in a bad mood, and I was determined not to do it again this year. I really tried not to think about her on Sunday. I think I made it through not being such a jerk this year, but after Mother’s Day was over I felt I had missed something by not taking time to think about what an amazing Mom I had.

I really would like to post a few times about my Mom, but we’ll see how this goes. One of the things I’d like to post about is how I had the chance to lead my Mom to the Lord, and all the circumstances that lined up to that event. She trusted Christ as her Lord and Savior less than a year before she died. Any sadness I get thinking about her is totally selfish, as I know that she is better now, and more alive today than she ever had been here on earth. She is in the presence of Jesus, where there is fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore. I WILL one day be with them both! Glory!

I am horrible with remembering dates, so I don’t know when she was diagnosed with cancer, but I was living at home. I pretended not to hear her say it on the phone to a family member, and I think I convinced myself that I misheard…until she got my brother and me together to talk. I hope you never have that talk.

The doctors called her cancer “very aggressive” and she had to go in for a radical mastectomy, followed by all the treatment that you know goes with that, also followed by all the side effects. I know that she and my Step-Father held back a lot of information from my brother and me so I may have some details wrong. From what I remember she beat the cancer, and they did another radical mastectomy on her other breast I suppose as a precaution…I’m not sure. I remember many surgeries, and recoveries. I thought that would be it, and it was for a few years.

When it came back it did so all over her body. The doctors again began treatments and with that again came side effects. The last bout had her all over the place. She gained a lot of weight, and then dropped down to hardly anything. She went from being in a wheelchair to walking around fine. It was a crazy rollercoaster. I heard them say the word terminal but they never said it to my brother or me. I guess they figured we knew. We probably did, but it is amazing how your brain will let you think that means something else.

I knew though...

I knew by the way she held her grandkids, and how she just poured herself out. You could see that she was trying to give all that she could with the time that she had. I know that she made it so long because she fought! Man, she fought for everyday, to see us, to see her grandbabies, to see her husband. I think she surprised many doctors. She saw both Zakk and I get married, and she was there to hold five of the six grandkids, but with a weakened system and two bouts of sepsis the cancer finally got its foothold on her.

When I got to the hospital she was already very medicated, and we were told that she had between two weeks and two months to live. She was too medicated to really speak to anyone from that point on. I remember sitting in her room and trying to think of Bible verses to say to her. I sang quietly “What a Day That Will Be” to her. I quoted Romans 8:18 – “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” over and over. I don’t know if it was for her or me. I let her know that it was ok to let go. I know she tried to say “I Love You” to me, which meant more to me than anything. It was the last words she ever heard me say, and the last words I ever heard her say. She only made it the two weeks.

I got the call Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church. She had gone on to glory very early in the morning. She had not opened her eyes in days, but my Step-Father said that she turned her head, looked at him, and smiled as she drifted away peacefully. My wife and I got to the hospital and into the room, and to me it was really the most reliving thing to see her. To know that she was now absent from that body and present with the Lord was the most comforting thing I could imagine.

I remember my grandma sitting at the head of the bed weeping. I leaned over and hugged her, and said, “Imagine the church service Mom is at this morning!” That was my thought. I can’t remember feeling any pain throughout that whole time. All I remember is feeling gratitude to the Lord for saving her, and comfort knowing she is with the one who loved her enough that He took her sins upon His shoulders some two thousand years ago.

The thought of my Mother in Heaven has comforted me everyday since she has been gone, and most days it is enough to know that she is with Jesus, and I will see her again. Other days I get a little selfish and wish she was still here for me to hug, and hear my kids call “Hunny”. Mother’s Day is one of those days, but the last thing she would want is for me to get hung up on being selfish, it was so not her style. Mother's Day now is for the Mother of my kids, who, like my mom is one of the most selfless people I know. She is a wonderful mother to our three kids, and I love her more than I could say. She deserves a Mother's Day each week, and by the Grace of God I will not ever ruin another one for her... my Mom raised me better than that.

Bonnie Kay
“Hunny”
1953 - 2006