Thinking of Mom…Praising
Jesus
On January 5, 2001, Mom went to be with Jesus. To be honest, I struggled with her death and
God’s timing. Throughout my life, my greatest fear had been losing my mom to
death. Yet as I look back, I am convinced that her life and death was a study
in the sovereignty and grace of God. Mom spent most of her life until she was
married in a house on the edge of the West Salem community, along with her 9
siblings and parents. She met the Lord in assurance of Salvation at age 15 at a
Youth for Christ rally. Her first
health crisis came in her preschool years and left her heart, already affected
by genetic dispositions weakened. No one knows or can remember the exact nature
of the illness, but terms such as rheumatic fever have been tossed around. The next mention of her heart occurred as she
entered nurse’s training when a doctor scoffed at her endeavors to complete
such a program. By God’s grace she was
able to complete her RN, marry, and bear a child – me, with no ill effects on
her heart.
I first learned of her heart issues in my early teen years
when they tried various medications to help keep her heart in rhythm. When I
was 14 years old, she had her first heart catheterization; that was in 1973,
and the procedure was considered somewhat dangerous, requiring a stay of
several days in the hospital. She had
had atrial fib on and off. The results showed that she had definite problems
which they attempted to combat through medications. As the years progressed, she was in atrial
fib more often than she was in normal sinus rhythm. Yet she continued to work
as an occupational health nurse.
In 1977, Daddy was out of town on a business trip. Mom and I were home alone, when she began to
feel really sick. Brave woman that she was, she drove herself, with me along
for the ride, to the doctor who immediately insisted that she be
hospitalized. As it turned out, she had
numerous blood clots in the thigh area of both legs. This required extensive
surgery. Recovery was slow, but she was
able to return to work. However, she
would remain on both Coumadin and Heparin (twice a day by injection) until her
death.
Her next health crisis occurred in 1982 with a ruptured ovarian
cyst when she almost bled to death, before they did surgery. Recovery took longer, but she returned to
work, but finally in August of 1986—she went out on disability. A couple of months later she wound up in the
hospital with undiagnosed abdominal pain.
The doctors were hesitant to do surgery since her heart was so
weak. When they finally decided to so
exploratory surgery, they discovered that her appendix had ruptured – her referred pain had been deceptive. Before they took her into surgery, the doctor
gave her a 40% chance of surviving surgery. However, by the grace of God, she defied the
odds, though she remained on ventilator for several days.
As the years progressed, she had ups and downs, other
hospitalizations that were attributed to a combination of congestive heart
failure and pneumonia. In 1997, she went
on oxygen 24/7. By 2000, her heart was severely
and irreparably weakened. There were
numerous trips to the office of her cardiologist. On the last visit in January, 2001, he told
her, “Miriam, you have fooled us before.
No one, but God knows how much time you have left.”
It was only a couple of days later on January 5, 2001 that
God called her Home. I had worked part
of a day that day. My pastor came to
visit and pray with us. She was in bed
and planned to take a nap before she ate supper, but wanted Daddy and me to go
ahead and eat. She never woke up from
that nap – her next view was that of Heaven.
If I learned anything from this, it was that God’s timing is
perfect. Any of the previous health crises
could have taken her to Heaven, but God held her in the palm of His hand and
used her in sickness and in health. She
was a willing servant of Christ until He called her home and remains a
testimony to the fact that God is good all the time. I still miss her, but I anticipate the day
when we are reunited in Heaven.
