Their Just Reward

When I was twenty-six years old my mother died of lung cancer at the age of 49.  At the time I thought she was older.  Now I know how young she was.  She had lived a very full life.  She had married young and had her children young.  She had raised her children to adulthood, she had outlived her husband and even though life was hers for the taking, the lung cancer she had been diagnosed with had other plans.  So, ten weeks after her death sentence she did just that, she died.
I miss my mother each and every day.

I was not new to death.  My father had died 8 years earlier, at the age of 41.  All of my grandparents had died.  I had friends and acquaintances who had died as well.  I came to envy people who had never lost anyone that they loved.   Then I came to realize that loss was loss no matter if you experienced that loss at a young age or into your senior years.  You never get over it, and you crave that person each and every day.

This week in our small community we lost two young women.  One was 52 and the other was 49.  I couldn’t help but draw parallels to my life.  Both of these women have daughters who were grown but still very young.  I remember that my mother was alive when I married and when my oldest son was born.  But it was like she knew that she wouldn’t be around.  She never seemed to bond with her oldest grandson.  I couldn’t figure that out, until she got sick, and then died.  That was so sad to me.

As I consider these young girls I want to hug them tight and let them know that it will be hard, very hard.   At the age they are they are going to need their mother.  The key though, that I didn’t learn until a lot later is to acccept support whenever and wherever they can find it.  There will be surrogate mothers come into their life.  They need to accept that support and advice, realizing that no one can take the place of their mother, ever.  

The older I get the more I realize that my mother is always with me.  She used to hold my hand when we went shopping at the mall.  Oh, how I hated that.  I was a teenager, after all.  But what I wouldn’t give to have my mother hold my hand again.  Well, there have been many times that I have felt my mother holding my hand.  She had very bony fingers.  There are seriously times that I can feel her holding my hand, tight.  I relish those times.  I can feel her hugging me too when it seems I need a hug.

I have lived on this earth for more years without my mother than I have lived here with her.  That is so sad for me.  But she has been with me every single time I’ve needed her.  You’d be surprised how often she has balled me out while I have been driving in the car.  It’s funny sometimes how often I sound just like her.

Kenny Chesney had a song out with lines “Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.”  We are all like that.  But you know that we live each day of our lives in anticipation of going to heaven.  So I say “good for them”.  They have accomplished all that God wanted them to accomplish on this earth.  They get to go to their just reward.  Good for them.  So sad for the rest of us.

Prayers for our community and the families in pain this week.