The Afternoon of Life

 In a world where things have slowed to a crawl…where death waits at the door…where every moment with mom has become precious…a hidden blessing has showed up.   That blessing walked in the door last Saturday afternoon and I have spent five days rejoicing and thanking God for letting me see this blessing.   It’s a blessing I’ve had for all but five years of my life…I’ve known it was a blessing…but I’d forgotten.   Forgotten because time and space and distance and life had gotten in the way.   And now I’m being reminded again of how much God loves me, because He blessed me with a little brother…David Paige. Someone once told me that if you want to know how a man will treat you when you’re his wife then watch how he treats his mother.   I’ve decided this week that my sister-in-law Kim must feel incredibly loved and cherished for I’ve watched David love and cherish his mother in beautiful, tender and practical ways.   He’s brought a smile to her face…and mine.   He’s filled the house wi

  It is a strange thing to think about choosing the box that your mother’s body will be packaged and stored in after her spirit is gone.   I expected to be a little horrified at the task of making such a choice.   Mom, whose sense of “frugality” has known no bounds, instructed us in making our choice.   “You buy the cheapest coffin they have!”   We didn’t promise to follow those instructions. We walked into a room full of caskets and I stood there realizing the dignity and beauty that was in the room.   But my eyes were immediately drawn to a casket.   There just was no second choice for me.   I saw another possibility, but it took about a half second to dismiss and move back to “Winter Bloom”, a beautiful cream-colored casket with pale pink lining and a pink flower etched in the top panel.   Each corner is also inlaid with beautiful pink flowers.   Mom had already shared with me the outfit she wanted to be buried in…Dad’s favorite outfit she wore, and rightfully so.   She is defini

The scariest sound I’ve heard in a long time…maybe forever…was mom’s wake up call at 6:00 a.m. this morning.   “Help me!   I’ve fallen!” she called. I don’t know how I got to the living room so fast…David right behind me.   Mom was sprawled on the floor next to her bed.   It took both of us to lift her – carefully – unable to put an arm under her right arm where her lymph nodes were removed.   David lifted her left arm as I wrapped my hands around her waist to get her to her knees, then standing, then onto the potty, her original destination. It is a horrible sight to see your 76-year-old mother lying on a cold, hard floor.   My heart broke.   After we got her off the potty and back on the bed, I checked her arm and leg for bruising.   It wasn’t till I moved across the room and looked back at her that I saw the egg forming above her right eyebrow.   Her head had banged the floor.   I raced for an ice bag, but she refused to hold it on the bump for very long. I sat watching her fi

 Our hospice nurse informed us today that mom’s time with us may be down to two to three weeks.   I’m so grateful for my precious brother David’s presence in the house.   His spirit is as infectious as it was when were younger.   As the baby of the house he was also the family clown.   He learned early that he could make us smile, and he has done a good job of making us smile through the years.   David has known his own heartbreak and heartache and I learned today that his encounters with my brother Richard were not as friendly as I’d always thought they were…and that made me sad that two boys could grow up in the same house, with the same parents and the same sister - the same love and the same rules – and turn out so totally different.   For whatever reason that happened, I am beyond grateful tonight for the love of my “little” brother (who’s a good 3 inches taller than I am)…for the respect he shows mom…for his tender heart.   He has brought a wonderful wife into our family and sh

   I found a great quote tonight by Dwight L. Moody when I was looking for something to start this blog.   He once said, “We talk about heaven being so far away. It is within speaking distance to those who belong there. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.” I’ve not shared yet the wonderful gift my parents shared with us by making preparations for the end of their lives.   My parents could be the poster children for end-of-life preparation.   I’d like to share some of the things they did ahead of time that makes their departures easier for us to bear as their children.   It has allowed us to concentrate on our relationship instead of struggling through the unknowns. 1.      Both my parents have provided us the assurance that we will be together again in heaven.   The first and most important thing one can do in preparing for death is to be sure that you will stand before your Creator as His child.   You can only become His child by accepting the gift of salvation offe

My mind will not be still tonight.   It’s almost 1:00 a.m. and I find myself thinking about the “circle of life”.   I was her first child.   When I was pulled from her body I was wrapped in a blanket and placed in her arms.   She was my beginning.   She nurtured me and loved me.   She cared for me in my innocence and inability to care for myself.   She held me through my sorrows.   She diapered me and dressed me.   She made my bed.   She kept my nursery clean.   She fed me.   When I was sick she administered my medications.   And in that beginning…in those first couple of months…we lived the life that is now repeated – only we’ve switched roles.   I am loving her and doing all I can to nurture her.   I am caring for her in her inability to care for herself.   I am holding her when she’s sad.   I am caring for her personal needs and helping to dress her.   I am making her bed.   I am keeping her rooms clean.   I am making sure she is fed.   I am administering her medications. And I pra

 Tonight I saw the lump where a tumor is growing in my mother’s lower back.   It was midnight and she was lowering herself on to the portable potty that was delivered today…and there was no mistaking the bulge in her lower back.   I was shocked…it was not there yesterday.   How fast is this thing growing…and is this the reason she has been so uncomfortable for the last few days?   And why do things like this happen in the middle of the night.   Darkness is the place of fear…and I came back to bed afraid.   I was afraid for her and what this may mean…I was afraid for me and what this may mean.   How will we keep her comfortable if these things are growing like this?    The questions came and the darkness started to fold in … not just the room but into my heart.   And I knew Who and where to turn to for comfort.                                       I’m so grateful for biblegateway.com that makes searching the Scriptures easy.   You can search 3 ways: 1)by specific verse, 2) by specifi

My wonderful husband shared some Scripture verses with me as the week became a tumultuous storm around us and those verses have stayed on my heart either through special phrases that Peterson included in his paraphrase of the Word or through the promises of God that came shining through.   I want to spend time this morning using those verses to pray His promises for my family and friends…and I want to share my prayers with you so that you’ll know how I’m praying this morning.   This is my act of worship on the Lord’s Day when I cannot draw together in the physical presence of those I love through the Lord’s family.   Maybe if we all knew HOW others prayed for us and not just THAT others prayed for us we would begin to understand how God works to intervene in our lives in answer to prayer.   In James 1:2-4, we are told , “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and sho

Mothers and daughters play such important roles in each other’s lives but many times don’t even know it.   We know that mothers are important to their infant daughters because they provide nurturing and sustenance.   We know that mothers are important to their toddler and child daughters as they help them develop their feminine identities.   We know that mothers are important to teenage daughters as the struggle for independence helps develop their strengths and talents and abilities to cope with adult life.   We know that mothers are important to their daughters as they move into adulthood, especially encouraging and passing along information as their daughters raise their own babies.   We know that mothers serve throughout life as cheerleaders, confidantes, personal life guides, gurus of practical wisdom.   At no point does a mother become unimportant to her daughter. But what happens when mothers make mistakes…or daughters make mistakes?   Can those mistakes be used by God to str

As if the hurt of watching my mother die is not enough to break my heart, today I watched my brother Richard get arrested, hand-cuffed and led away by police after I had to call them.   A day that started out well turned to disaster because of his temper…and I feel so broken tonight for a brother who may never know how much he is loved.   Richard got up this morning and mowed the backyard…what a pleasant surprise.   Around 1:00 I heard something hitting the front window and wondered if it was raining, till I realized he had turned on the sprinkler.   Mom heard it too.   “Go tell your brother to turn off that water.   The lawn is already dead.   I don’t want to waste that money.”   I stepped out front and relayed her message exactly as she’d said it.   He lumbered by saying, “The lawn is not dead.   I know what I’m doing.   I watered the back lawn and it’s nice and green now.”   So I went back in the house and shared his words with mom.   She raised her voice and said, “You go tell hi