This week I almost lost my mom.
You've heard that before, right? You listen to your friends and co-workers talk about parents with failing health or worse, parents that have died. So you cluck your tongue and you shake your head in sympathy, thinking you're capable of imagining their fear or grief. Capable, at the very least, of some level of empathy.
Today, I was in my mom's hospital room talking to my Grammy. She told me about a Bible study she'd been attending in which the topic of conversation was: "Why do bad things happen?" One of several answers was that going through difficult times allows you to empathize with other people someday who might be going through the same thing.
I figured that was a pretty rotten consolation prize.
But I'm skipping ahead.
Yesterday morning, my mom and I were told that she had an aneurysm bleeding into her brain.
The day before, we were joking about what a squirmy bed mate Evie turned out to be during her first sleepover with Grandma....barely 24 hours later, I stood in a hallway and watched that same woman get wheeled through a set of double doors that might never return her.
There are no words to describe that feeling.
When all you have left to cling to are your memories and your faith.
Her scent, the feel of her hand squeezing mine. The long, swaying hugs. The smile I can't resist and the laugh I would know anywhere. The way she makes me feel like the most special, cherished thing walking around on two legs.
I've come to realize as an adult that my love for my parents expanded when I first looked into the eyes of my newborn son. Surprising? It was to me. Because as well as I thought I knew my mom and dad....as thoroughly as I understood and appreciated them...I could never truly grasp the magnitude of their love for me.
I want the world for my children. I want them to be happy, safe, warm. I want to raise them to be loving, generous, compassionate people. I want to kiss them constantly and tell them how much I love them until it's so deeply ingrained into their minds and hearts that they'll never stop being completely and perpetually aware of it.
I want to hold them close when they're hurting and give them a nudge when they lack confidence. I want to share knowing looks with them and secret jokes, silly songs and quiet whispers under the blanket. I want them to run to my bed when they're scared at night, and lay against my shoulder when they're tired of walking.
I want to be for my kids, what my mom was for me.
Because everything that I am as a mother, as a wife, and as a human being is because of the remarkable woman that showed me the way.
My mom is my best friend. And how lucky does that make me? As much as I loved and admired her through my childish eyes, it's a hundred times as powerful now. From that moment when it finally clicked, when I finally realized that this devastating, all-consuming love I have for my children is exactly the same love that my mother has for me...everything changed.
Through all of my quirks, my bottomless pit of sarcasm, my crankiness and my selfishness; in spite of all my flaws and my rough edges....my mom loves being around me, has threatened bodily harm if I were ever tempted to move more than a quick car drive away. And I understand that now. I understand it and I return it. Because as much as a father can demonstrate God's love and strength to a child, nothing quite exemplifies God's yearning for His children like a mother.
As I finally finish writing this blog, it's been six weeks since the day that I almost lost my mom. Six weeks of relief, fear, and relief again....of wondering if the woman that raised me would ever be quite the same person she was before. Six weeks of watching God work a miracle right before my eyes. Of watching my mom push her way past every hurdle with a speed that surprised even the most experienced doctors and nurses.
I wish I could say it's been smooth and easy. I wish even more that I could say the journey is over, that her recovery is complete. I wish, as I did during those early days in the hospital, that I could simply fast-forward the next weeks and months until I finally get to the point where I can say: "There, that's her. That's exactly the lady I know from September 15th. The same healthy, happy, energetic, outgoing, always-says-what-she's thinking-and-laughs-at-her-own-jokes-louder-than-anyone-else woman that I spent the day with before her brain started bleeding."
I wish I could, but time is something that can't be toyed with by us mere mortals. And thank goodness for that. Because if I had been able to skip past my mom's recovery, I would have missed everything God was trying to show me.
Grammy was right. There is a possibility, a good one, that I will encounter someone in my life who is struggling over the health of a loved one. There is a chance that I'll look into a set of fearful, wet eyes...and see myself.
I may not be able to make them feel better about what might very well be a hopeless situation. And I certainly can't promise them that their story will end as well as mine did. But I understand now that God isn't asking me to do that. I understand that there's more to this equation than my own words and memories.
I understand now that experiences like these reveal our Creator to us. And that's what I need to share.
Not meaningless, fluffy platitudes. Not empty promises.
What I can share now, that I couldn't before, is the face of Christ that can only be seen from the empty corridors of a hospital. When you're curled up in a too small, too hard waiting room chair and pouring your heart out to your Father. When the tears don't bring release and your mom isn't there to hold you like you really just need for her to do.
That's the moment. If you're willing to really look, that's the place in your life where you can say, with complete certainty, that you saw God.
Because our Lord is never more visible than when we are looking up from the darkness.
That's what I'll share with the hurting person that I meet someday. And while it might have seemed like a rotten consolation prize six weeks ago, now I simply feel blessed. Blessed that I have this story to tell, this comfort to bring, this Light to shine in their dark place.
And the best part? The best part is that I already know how to start the conversation.
I'll take their hand in mine, squeeze it tight, and say:
"Let me tell you about my Mom..."
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