DEATH OF A PARENT

In 1994, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. The real thing about cancer is that until it has touched someone close to you, you never really understand the devastation and havoc it can cause. 

 

My mom spent the next ten years fighting her cancer and never did I ever hear my mom give up on Jesus or blame Him. Her motto was that she was not someone dying from cancer but living with cancer.  She used every situation to share God’s grace and love with anyone she met, whether it was in doctor’s rooms, or in the oncology while receiving her treatment.  She believed what she had been given was to be used for the glory of God and it opened opportunities for her to tell others about Jesus. 

 

The day came when the Doctors finally told my mom there was no other treatment for them to try. I decided to take leave and go down to the Cape (about 10 hours’ drive from where I live) to spend some time with her. I did not tell her I was coming and surprised her in the middle of the night and we just cried as we held each other.  My mom was really weak and could hardly walk, and as we held each other all through the night that night, I never knew that this would be the last week I would get to spend with my mom.

 

During that last week of my precious mommy’s life we just lay in bed together, holding each other and talking endlessly,  she had so many dreams she still wanted to fulfill , we spoke about all things except the fact that she was dying. I just could not bring myself to approach this subject, she had been so positive and even till the end, she refused to admit she was losing the fight.

 

Due to all the power outages we were having in SA that time, her blood tests took a full week to get back to us, when it did my moms count was over 2000, rarely does someone ever reach this count. We packed my dad and moms things up and made our way back home, I needed my mom back with me at home, where I felt I could nurse her and be with her.

 

The Morning we left was the last morning I would actually talk to my mom, before we even got half way home, she was in a coma.  We made arrangements to bring her the rest of the way home in an ambulance. The Hospital in my home town had no room available, and could only fit her in the maternity ward. Oddly the place where someone enters this world would be the place my mom would be leaving.

 

My mom passed away one day later as we stood around her bed singing amazing grace, this was one of the hardest days of my life, my mom and I had such a special bond. I would wait most nights for my shower time to just sit and cry, not just cry but wail , it felt like the inner part of my heart had been ripped out. The person, who loved me unconditionally, carried me, comforted me, who was always there for me was no longer around. No more walks and chats on the beach, no more cooking and sharing time together. All I had ever known with my mom was gone.

 

There would no longer be someone I could call when my kids were ill to ask advice, or someone to call when I just felt down and wanted to hear her voice, or someone to call to tell her the special things that were happening in my life. So many times I would pick up my cell phone to send her a message or something would happen and I would think I must tell my mom and then realize she is no longer just a message or call away. The hole that is left in your life when someone you love dies makes you realize that life is too short to wait for tomorrow to say you’re sorry, or tell them how much you love them.

 

My dad felt this loss even worse, the person he had loved since school, was no longer there to share his every move with. He drank day and night trying to not think of reality, and although he had moved in with us, our love and support could not fill the hurt or hole of the loss that he was experiencing. My mom had been his Florence Nightingale, and the light from her Lamp had finally gone out.  But he would soon realize that the light still burned inside him where her memory still lived.

 

The hardest would be my first Christmas, this was always a huge event in our family, my mom and I would get together a week before and begin to prepare for this wonderful day.  Christmas day was the best, we would be up early, cooking, setting the table and just wait on every one hand and foot, we loved every bit of Christmas. Sadly to say my first Christmas without my mom, came and went, I put up no decorations, didn’t even cook, just took the family out for lunch. My heart ached for my mom and I had no special feeling for the day at all, and yet this day was never to have been about my mom, it was the day we celebrated Jesus’s birth. How sad, I had forgotten why we celebrated this day.

 

But as time went on, my heart started to heal and the very next Christmas there I was, all on my own, cooking up a storm, remembering my mom and although I still missed her and ached for her, I remembered the reason for the season. I slowly started parting with her clothes and things, but will admit 12 years down the line, I still have one jersey that I have kept and think of her each time I look into my cupboard and see it.  I can finally share her story without tears flowing down my cheeks.

 

My advice to anyone living with Cancer or living with someone with cancer, or living cancer free, is to live each day as if it’s your last, take in God’s creation, and the preciousness of life. Never let the sun go down on you with something you have not set right with someone.  Spend every moment you can with someone special, and tell people around you how precious they are.  Life is not ours but Gods alone.  If you have not taken Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, don’t wait for a circumstance to arrive to lead you in that direction.

 

Healing from a loss of someone takes a while, but Jesus is our comforter and he knows every tear you shed and hurt you carry, don’t feel odd to speak to Him even when you can’t see Him, He promised never to leave us nor forsake us, stand on His promise and take refuge in Him. I have also found that there is huge healing in helping others in a similar situation, look around you and draw close to someone who is only beginning their cancer journey or for someone who is all alone after the loss.