10 years ago this week...

It has been 10 years since my mom breathed her last.  I remember the day and the days leading up to it like it was yesterday.  I was in college at UWF, and I had a night class.  My mom had called me right before it started to tell me that she had called an ambulance and was heading over to the hospital.  She had so many health problems, and this was not super out of the ordinary.  I told her I would come right away, and she said not to, to just stay and she'd let me know later how she was doing.  Hours passed and I never heard anything.  That would be our last conversation.  

When I didn't hear from her, I called and called her cell phone.  I remember calling Mrs. Jean Lamberson and probably Ms. Kay Geoghagan and Ms. Vicki Morgan to find out if they knew how she was.  And I prayed.  Oh, how I prayed.  I begged God for some sort of information about her.  Sometime in the middle of the night, my phone rang.  What a dread it is to hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night.  It's almost never good news.  It was my mom's doctor letting me know that her heart had stopped several times and they had been able to revive her, but I should come right away.  

I ran into Hallie's room.  Our friend Valerie was spending the night, and I didn't know what to do, I just burst into tears and said, "My mom's dying!  I have to leave!"  They immediately got up and drove me the 2ish hours to Panama City.  Everything after that is truly a blur.  I remember the doctors telling me that I had to make the decision of whether or not they should resuscitate her if she needed it.  I remember lying outside on the back patio of my mom's house once I had made it home to St. Joe that night, looking up at the stars, begging God to do something, to help her, to heal her.  I remember sweet friends around me.  I even remember laughing to myself at one point:  at the time, there was a pastor from St. Joe who I literally saw absolutely everywhere we went (Chinese restaurant?  he's there.  Piggly Wiggly?  he's there.  Dollar store?  there.)  Guess who happened to be visiting someone at the hospital?  And guess who was in the room at the time of my mom's death?  Yep.  And it still makes me giggle at how absurd it was that he was there in that moment, but somehow it was fitting.  

When her final hour came, there was a handful of other people there as well.  Ms. Kay suggested singing hymns around her bed in the ICU.  We sang and cried.  She was unresponsive, and I don't exactly know how death works, but I believe she could hear us.  At the moment of her death we were singing "Jesus, Name Above All Names."  Only God could orchestrate a moment so sweet - my mom sang this to me every night before I went to bed.  I sing it to Luca sometimes, and I usually can't make it through without crying.

What a dark moment, yet so full of hope.  We are not meant to die!  Death is unnatural, and even though it happens to everyone sooner or later, it is not how it was originally supposed to be.  We were created for so much more than this world.  If this world was all there was, I would grieve with no hope.  But thanks be to God, I can grieve over my mom and miss her terribly with full assurance that she is with the Lord.  And definitely not based on her own merit.  My mom would have been the first to tell anyone what a sinner she was.  She had much guilt from her past choices in life, but that guilt was washed away by Jesus!  She completely trusted Him to save her.  She knew she could never save herself.  She did not look or act like a typical "church lady."  She offended people and got angry and had addictions, but I learned more from her about what it truly means to trust Jesus for my salvation than anyone else I've ever known.  With my mom, there was no doubt.  It was 100% Jesus 0% her.

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.

He only is my rock and my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.  

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.  

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;  I shall not be shaken.  

On God rests my salvation and my glory; my might rock, my refuge is God."

from Psalm 62*

It has been 10 years.  But she's no less days to sing God's praise then when she had first begun.

I came across some pictures that I hadn't even realized 

look so similar of my mom and me and of Luca and me :)

*As I was typing this I was listening to Shane and Shane (still never gets old to me, probably because most of their lyrics are straight out of Scripture).  Right after I typed part of Psalm 62, their song "Psalm 62" came on :)  I love it when God reminds me of His presence and trustworthiness through something even as small as the timing of when a song plays.