My mom has terminal cancer. What was originally thought to be isolated has spread in her bones. The doctors suggest that optimally, she could live a few more years.
A few months prior the diagnosis, Deb and I were talking during a walk together about the future. We’ve been spared, comparatively, a lot of human suffering. We’ve witnessed loss in other families, neighbors, and friends. Yet, for a large family, at least on my side, with sprawling uncles, aunts, and cousins to fill two barns, most of my adult life has been spared the work of death and loss.
If I’m honest, I began to process my mom’s potential departure from this life when she told me last summer that the doctors found a lump. It took so long for the dreaded Canadian healthcare system to get her in for scans. Too long. My mom, I could tell, wasn’t itching to really know the truth, choosing to believe it would just all be dealt with by the professionals. Something inside me, however, began hurting, and praying for her.. and for my own soul that was gearing up for the possibility.
I’ve always been close to my mom. All of us four siblings have cherished her as our biggest cheerleader. She’s always been in our corner, believing in us, even if she was shaking her head. I’m not blogging a eulogy today, but I am trying to embrace the journey of grief. We will all lose loved ones. Even our Jesus wept and grieved over the loss of friends. I remember the first time I heard the phrase, “Feel your feelings.” I found it odd, even offensive at first. How could faith stoop to such a low estate as our own feelings?
Today, however, my faith is becoming content with pain. My faith is growing in ways I wouldn’t have ever believed in the past, when it simply denied my circumstance and clung to outcomes out of fear. Faith in the resurrection love of Jesus is comforting in the valley, the dining table is set in dark places. I will not fear.
I’m grateful that my mom is a believer, and this journey for her will undoubtedly be the most treasured one of all as she lives into the moments that we so easily take for granted. I pray our whole family learns to love more authentically and hurt the way we should now, so that we can be truly liberated in the freedom that removes death’s sting. To die before we die. To let go before we’re forced to surrender. This is the stuff of formation, and I choose grief, by faith, knowing I am truly comforted when my heart is truly broken.
Praying for wisdom for our family in Romania, to value her remaining time, plan the way we should with trips to Canada, and for the Lord’s mercy to overshadow us all. May she be granted many sweet days, months and years. I love you, mom.