"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb." Psalm 139:13 New Living Translation

April 19, 2012 Tomorrow will be the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death. She died of pancreatic cancer in 1987. She was 69 years old. I spent today reflecting on what I was doing in 1987, where I was living, and where I was working. I was working as a special education teacher in San Antonio, Texas. On April 7, 1987 I moved in to an older, restored home in central San Antonio. The house was built in the 1930’s. It had hardwood floors, 9-12 feet ceilings, cedar closets, a detached 2 car garage, and sat on the corner on two lots. The front and side yards had a total of 11 trees including: pecan, ash, oak, and mimosa trees. The neighborhood was quiet with older established professional people. I loved this house. I fell in love with it when I first saw it. On the day I moved in, I received a phone call from my mother telling me she was going into the hospital for some “routine tests.” I asked her what was wrong. She told me she thought she had a hernia. I told her to keep me posted. She acted like it was no big deal. The next day, I called her hospital room. She was in the restroom when the doctor answered the phone. I asked me if he could tell me anything about my mother’s condition. He told me she had a tumor in her stomach. Her condition was not good. As he was talking to me, she came out of the restroom and asked him who he was talking to. He said your daughter. She became very upset, telling him not to tell me anything else. When she took the phone from him, I acted like he didn’t tell me anything. She seemed ok with my answer. I told her I was thinking about visiting her. She liked the idea. After talking to her doctor, I tried to call my brother David several times but all I got was his answering machine the entire weekend. I called my brother Tom. He acted like he didn’t anything about her condition but that he knew she was in the hospital. I somehow knew he really did know what was wrong with her but wasn’t telling me. As the days wore on, I was processing what the doctor told me with disbelief. I did not want to believe my mother had cancer. If she needed medical care and treatments, living with my father was going to be hell for her. His constant complaining, demanding, and verbal abuse would only get worse if she had to lie in bed at home. He was like a little, spoiled, abusive child. He complained about everything she did or said. She could never do anything right by him. He continuously demanded she clean the house even though she worked and he was home all day. He sat reading the newspaper and smoking cigarettes. When she got home after working all day, he demanded she make him something to eat, when he had all day to eat. If he wanted something from the store, no matter what time of the day or night, she would go to the store. When we all lived at home, he complained about us turning on too many lights in the house, flushing the toilet too many times, having the heat on making the house too warm, opening the refrigerator too many times in one day, playing the radio too loud (even though he complained he could not hear very well), and just about everything else. So, I knew she would not be cared for by him. I thought I would bring her to San Antonio to live with me while she recovered. When I mentioned this to her, she said it would not be necessary because she only had a hernia. I began to make after care arrangements through the hospital because I knew she had more than just a hernia. One day as I pulled into the driveway of the home I had just bought, I remember thinking that I had a solution to make her better. I stood next to my car, looked to the sky, and tried to make a deal with God. I said, “Lord, if you let my mother live, you can have the house back! I don’t need the house, I need my mother. So, just take the house, make her better, and we will all be fine. Amen” The next time this happened, I was in the driveway in the same place. Only this time I asked the Lord to take the house and my college degrees in return for letting her live. I thought this was a perfectly sane request to make. I am sure the Lord looked down on me with pity. Needless to say, my request was not granted. I did not have a relationship with the Lord then. I really thought I could make a deal with him in spite of this. The next two weeks went by so fast. I flew to Baltimore twice. The first was to be there for her surgery. The surgery was not an attempt to save her. Her cancer was too far spread. The surgery was exploratory. The doctor wanted to see how far her cancer had spread. He told me after the surgery that all of her pancreas, her internal female organs, her liver, and three-quarters of her stomach were consumed with cancer. Treatment was not an option. He could only keep her comfortable for the last part of her life. I had to fly home the weekend following her surgery. I did not want to leave her but I had to go back to Texas to take care of business associated with the purchase of the house. I was at home one day when the phone rang. My brother told me our mother was getting worse and that I should fly back as soon as possible. I flew back that evening. Mom lived one week to the day after her surgery. I made her funeral arrangements. As I looked at her lying in her coffin, I realize at that you really cannot take anything with you when you go. Just the clothes you are buried in and nothing more. Mom visited San Antonio the previous summer. I was delighted to have her stay with me for a week. We walked all around the city. She loved to walk. I would get so tired, I would have to sit down. Not her. I slowed her down. We visited the Alamo, went out to lunch, went shopping, visited my friends, and sat around in the evenings just talking. Before she left, she gave me my high schoold graduation ring, which I gave her to hold for me, and the little bracelet the hospital put on my wrist when I was born. My last name was on the pink and white bracelet. I was surprised she was giving me these things. She kept everything from my childhood. I thought maybe she felt I was responsible to keep them myself. I never gave it a second thought. On one of our shopping trips, she told me she had a wedding to go to in September and needed a dress. I bought her a dress for the wedding on one of our shopping trips. She liked the dress but thought it was too much money. I insisted on buying the dress for her. She did wear the dress to the wedding and received many compliments. Little did I know that it would be that very same dress in which she would be buried. After the funeral, I returned home. I didn’t think I was depressed. That weekend I went to the San Antonio Zoo with some friends. We had a picnic in Brackenridge Park near the zoo. Someone took a picture of me that weekend. Looking back at that picture, I looked depressed. I went on to gain 40 pounds because of all of the comfort food I ate in dealing with my mother’s death. Tomorrow, I am going to publish to my blog a story about my mom’s death, which I wrote about 1992. So, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of her death, for those of you who knew her and loved her, I know she is with the Lord. She earned her place in heaven. She has earned her angel wings. She is finally at peace.