Six Years

Friday the 13th. She would have had a good chuckle over that one. It’s hard to believe it has actually been so long that the anniversary falls once again on the same day of the week—Friday the 13th.

Friday, May 13, 2005 is when she left us. Actually, she and I said goodbye the day before, on May 12th. I had a hard time with that at first, but I know she didn’t want me to be there for it. Not her baby, her Bonnie. As I type this blog the day before I send it out to you, I realize that it has been six years since I last kissed my mom and told her I loved her. It has been six years since she spoke her last words on this earth, “I love you, too, Bon.”

I was there when she got the call the summer before. The vague but oh so obvious, “We need to see you to review the results of your pap smear. Can you be here at one o’clock?” Everyone knows they don’t call when the results are negative. They just mail you a note.

She was frantic. I remember hearing her hysterically scream for me from across the house. I was 25 years old and desperately trying to comfort my mom and tell her that it probably wasn’t as bad as she assumed it was. My mom, 65 years old at the time, had always been incredibly healthy. This devastating news just came out of nowhere, so unexpected. “This isn’t supposed to happen to me,” she just kept saying over and over.

We found out that afternoon that she had endometrial (uterine) cancer. “Surgery may be a cure for you,” the doctor told us. It was a shred of hope. But, when my dad, sister, and I saw the surgeon walking toward us after the surgery, his face told the sad story of what lie ahead for us.

“The cancer has spread through the uterine wall. Once she has recovered from the surgery, we will proceed with chemotherapy.” I was a child then (in comparison to the experiences I have since lived), and I know I didn’t fully understand the scope of his words. What child, at any age, can understand that a big scary monster is trying to steal her mommy?

My brother, sister, and I took turns taking her to chemotherapy treatments in St. Louis, MO. This is funny to say, but she became a different person during that time. I mean, a more joyful person, more loving, more appreciative of life, and love, and God’s gifts. Maybe it was the humbling circumstances; maybe it was the Zoloft (she’d say that might be it!), but we enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed each other and the time we had. We did things we never made time for before, like visiting the Arch, the zoo, Union Station. We laughed. We cried. We prayed. We never did that before.

She got better, but then she got worse. Much worse. It spread to her lungs and her liver. Being a mama’s girl, the baby, I had a very hard time accepting what everyone else knew was happening. I wasn’t about to admit for one second that God might not answer my prayers and heal her. I tried really hard to believe hard enough for everyone else who I thought was just refusing to have faith. That wasn’t it, though. It’s just what was really and truly happening. Bad stuff happens, and people die. It was my first taste of that nasty lesson.

Thursday, May 12, 2005, after I told her I loved her and she told it to me, she slipped into a coma just moments before I walked out the door. I didn’t realize that’s what it was, or I guess I wouldn’t have gone. But I had to go. I had to go take care of something important for her, something she needed me to do. I came back the next day, May 13th, my bags packed with the clothes I would wear to her funeral. I planned not to leave her side another minute until she had to go.

When I walked through the living room door, the sight of the empty hospital bed in the middle of the room slapped me in the face. I immediately turned my head to scan the house and thought, Why did they move her to the bedroom? I knew she was must too frail to lie in a flat bed. Then, I looked over at where my dad always sat and saw a visitor kneeling at his side and heard her offering condolences. She quickly got up and came to hug me and tell me how sorry she was. For what? What’s going on?

I dropped my bags in realization that the time had come and gone and I’d missed it. She died just hours before, and the funeral home was called to quickly come and get her before I got there. No one called to tell me because they knew I’d be driving and didn’t want me to be upset. I wanted to drop to the ground. I wanted to sob and hyperventilate and throw a fit. I wanted to disappear. I wanted her back, but I knew she shouldn’t come back. She shouldn’t come back to the pain she endured. She should celebrate her new body with her Savior.

If you have followed this blog and my baby blues (and triumphs!), you know I’ve needed my mom desperately the last few years. For a lot of reasons, however, I have needed her exactly where she is. For one thing, her funeral was my very first. Her death was the first real loss in my life. While I really, really needed and wanted my mom to help me through life’s toughest battles, I believe that losing her was part of the way God prepared me for losing my newborn son. Let’s face it, you don’t train for a marathon by jogging around the block, and you can’t prepare for losing your child by burying the family pet. My experience with her illness and death taught me a lot about having faith in God, not getting mad at Him when things don’t go how I planned, and picking up the pieces so I can keep living my life and being a testimony for His love and faithfulness.

For another thing, I know she holds my babies--in the grave and in the Heavenlies. Gabriel is buried right on top of her (and my dad). It’s one thing I’ve never had to worry about. One thing I’ve never spent my time thinking about. I don’t know if that would be true if he was somewhere else, all alone. I love knowing they are together, my mom and my sweet babies. I love knowing that they know, they know what has happened to me, but they know without hurting, without crying, without being afraid.

They know more than me. They know better than me. They understand deeper than I, even my little ones. Someday, I will understand it all, too. And I can’t wait . . . but I will.

I Corinthians 13:12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

My beautiful Mom and me, June 1983. I was 3 1/2 years old.

I don't have many pictures of my mom. I think she was always behind the camera. This is her driver's license picture. It looks exactly like her, though. It's the best driver's license picture I've ever seen. I think she's beautiful.