About two hours after Mother’s Day ended, my mother died in her bed of a massive heart attack. She was 65.
Mom called her doctor, only hours after I talked with her the morning of that special day. He told her to get to the hospital ASAP after hearing her symptoms—profuse sweating, vomiting, shoulder pain.
The ambulance came and sirens screamed on that 15-minute drive to the hospital where she gave birth to me, 43 years prior. Who knew that this hospital that facilitated my birth would also facilitate her death?
The emergency room doctor failed to draw blood when Mom arrived. The doctor failed to call for an EKG. Apparently, profuse sweating and vomiting, along with intense shoulder pain, wasn’t cause for alarm back then? At least not with that particular ER doctor. She diagnosed Mom with the flu and sent her home. At 1 AM. An hour after Mother’s Day officially ended.
On Mother’s Day, 17 years ago this year, Mom was two weeks away from packing everything she owned and moving from Ohio, where she birthed and raised me, to Wisconsin, where I live with my husband and three kids. She had hired the moving company. She had completed the garage sale.
Early on Mother’s Day, Mom and I talked about the house near us where she would have her three grandkids come and spend the night. She could hardly wait. After years of a strained relationship, we were good, she and me. We had both found a way back to each other through the thick and often dark woods of pain, hers and mine.
Mom and I talked about what her new life would look like. She’d make her beloved grandkids blueberry pancakes smothered with warm maple syrup on Saturdays before walking them across the street to the park. They’d swing on the swings and slide on the slide, Grandma waiting to catch them.
Then, I’d come over and she and I would sit on that garden bench I bought her for Mother’s Day that year—the one she’d never see—pale yellow wooden slats on a light blue iron frame with just a bit of rust. I found the gem in a consignment shop. Turns out it was made the same year of my mom—1936. How strange, the juxtaposition of life and death—of beginnings and endings.
Life doesn’t always turn out as planned—or hoped. We all know, I think.
But I know God’s grace is an amazing force. When we receive his grace for ourselves—when we truly understand how unworthy we all are of such grace—our hearts can’t help but extend the same favor to others. Even those who can be prickly, and cause us to bleed. Like my mother. And sometimes this amazing grace takes time to come to fruition, even in us Christians. There’s grace for that too, I believe. God alone knows our deepest hurts, unknown by any other.
God knows Mom and I had a rocky time of it for many years after I left home. And God knows grace didn’t flow freely through me for many of those years. But I wanted it to. I wanted to love my mom as Jesus loves me. So I prayed that God would change my heart and make my heart like his. I prayed. And prayed. And prayed some more.
While waiting for the feelings to come, I practiced behaviors—godly behaviors. I set necessary, healthy boundaries—goodness for both of us, though she didn’t think so at the time.
I kept in contact with her, even though infrequent for a time. I always honored Mom as my mother. I began focusing on the good in her—the true, the honorable, the just, the pure, the lovely, the commendable, the excellent, the praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). And I began telling her what I saw in her.
Remarkably, I learned she never saw the good in her I saw.
I learned the harshness in her was a reflection of the harshness she held for herself.
And I mourned.
I made it my mission to tell her often how much she meant to me, to others–how her worth had nothing to do with what she did or didn’t do but on how much God loved her because he sent his only and only son to die for her–and me–must as we are–and were–and will be–so totally imperfect, this side of heaven.
By God’s grace, in answer to my prayers for years, I learned that the unlovely always think they’re unlovely. And they need for us others to reflect their loveliness back to them. So they can soften. So they can let love in. So they can stop being so stiff and “strong” and harsh and mean. Because, after all, don’t we all need to be loved just as we are? Don’t we all long for someone to stay with us, even put up with us, long enough to see us beneath our obvious to our woundedness and LOVE us, so undeserving as we know we are?
Slowly, over time, Mom and I became close. Very close. I not only loved Mom in action; I loved her with feeling. I sobbed like I’ve never sobbed the day I heard she was dead.
On this Mother’s Day, I wish Mom were here still. I still have her garden bench, just brought out of the garage where it rests, protected from harsh Wisconsin winters.
I planted a prickly tea rose last spring in the front garden along the cold, stony path I walk every day to visit our horses. It’s the coral, sweet-smelling Tropicana, Mom’s favorite.
Today, the day before Mother’s Day, I took a first look after the harshest Wisconsin winter in history. I could hardly believe my eyes–tender green leaves on hard woody stems. The delicate rose made it through. She will bloom again. Planted with love, nurtured with patience, protected from harsh, perhaps we will all make it through. And wouldn’t the fragrant bloom in summer be worth the wait? The work? The prayer?
Forgive us the wrongs we have done, as we forgive the wrongs that others have done to us.
Matthew 6:12 GNB
For Mother’s Day, I’m giving away THREE award-winning books by my dear friend Leslie Leyland Fields, Forgiving Our Fathers and Mothers. To enter the drawing, leave a message either on the blog or on my social media where I post this piece. I’ll announce the winner on Monday.
