One week ago today, my 89-year old mother gently passed from this life into the next, after a short bout with cancer. Having virtually no pain throughout the process, mom slipped into a coma and quietly breathed her last breath.
While there’s no question she was ready to go to Heaven – and at the end wanted to get it done(!) – I admit it wasn’t easy to just let her go.
I had her around for 63 years…but she and 89-year old father have been married 68 years – and it’s been even harder for him.
Their only child, I admit mom wasn’t perfect…and she didn’t raise a perfect son, either! But she loved people and was so willing to share with others from what God had given her.
Basically shy, she was great company once she was comfortable in a group. But, if she didn’t know anyone, she enjoyed just sitting back and watching all the activity.
Mom lived and shared her faith – in a quiet way – right to the end…and she had a wonderful impact on people around her. To her final day she lived out what she believed in the presence of both residents and staff at the retirement community where she and dad resided.
Able to stay in her own place to the end, there was a steady stream of folks stopping by to see her before she passed.
As I read again this acrostic poem about the Proverbs 31 “wife of noble character” (:10-31), I was struck by how much of my mom I could see in these verses. Today’s verse notes, “Her children arise and call here blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.”
Dad and I do! And with a mother like that, it’s no wonder I married one of those ladies, myself!