Today is the second anniversary of my mother’s death. A death that was written in God’s book of life long before she was born, she had done all that He had required of her and brought her home.
I have been delaying going here but also knowing that this is where God is calling me to.
My mom’s life was good. She was the oldest of three and born a blond in a sea of dark haired, dark skinned babies in Hawaii in 1947. Her father was in the Air Force and stationed in Honolulu after a war that he should not have survived.
My mother was also one of the kindest, most generous women I have ever known. She was an awesome cook and often cooked our Wednesday night meals for our UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship) meals between confirmation and youth group among other things.
I grew up in the traditional 2 parent, churched family of the ’70’s. We had just enough but not too much. My mom stayed home and did daycare when needed while my dad worked as a forester/fire fighter with the U.S. government all of my childhood and most of my adulthood.
Then along came mid life for my mom, and issues started cropping up. A mental illness started to raise it’s ugly head, but no one wanted to notice or comment on it. My life as a young mom, a thousand plus miles from her parents, started to change. The phone calls asking, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR MOM IS DOING? coming from near and far, changing the dynamic of my world.
While the details may be shared later, right now what needs to be known is I needed to learn who the real God, Yahweh, was to me. I had relied on religion, not a relationship with our Creator, to define who I was. I can tell you that I have learned a lot in the last 20+ years. About who I am, who God is and who my mom was and was not.
I mourn my mother’s passing and all that could have/should have been in a perfect world, but I also know that God is greater that all of it; my hurt, her hurt and things that were beyond all of our control.
Mental illness needs to be acknowledged as not just a spiritual issue but also a physical/hereditary one. When my mother went to be with Jesus, a dark cloud lifted off of me, one that I had not even realized settled. My mother was not the dark cloud but her illness was. It had/has created long lasting effects on me and all of my family. I believe that she had accepted Christ as her savior as a young child and she shared Him with me and my brother, in her imperfect way, but in her last days she was not the mom I had grown up with. Christ was still there but hidden in the hurts of this very imperfect world.
I miss you mom.