In December of 2019, I discovered something that surprised me: I enjoy being near dying people. Unfortunately, it was my dear, precious mother who ushered me into this season of discovery. Pancreatic cancer had made its sneaky attack, taunting, in the end, every cell of her body, giving only one way of escape: death.
It was in that Christmas season of 2019 that I watched her body rapidly shut down. We talked about last things, future things, and eternal things. Upon her request, she was moved into a hospice home and made an even quicker decline. It was time. My brothers made it into town from their respective locations. Children and grandchildren, all a product of my mom and dad’s love and commitment, huddled in that room. We surrounded her bed, speaking our final words of comfort and love into her dying heart. The ones she once held in her womb could never give back to her what she had given to us. Her sweet voice which hinted at her Kentucky heritage would at that point only be tucked away as a memory. No longer opening her eyes, she communicated with raised eyebrows and some grins. Feeling an ever-nearing approach to eternity, I stayed the night in the hospice house, sharing the uncomfortable pull-out bed with my dad. At some point, he slipped out of the room, and I got up to sing Christmas songs to Mom. Her breathing had become more labored and unpredictable.
I laid back down on the pull-out sofa and dozed off, only to be woken shortly after by the hospice nurse who came to check on us a little after 2 AM, I believe. “She’s gone,” he said. Though cold and lifeless, I felt a tremendous relief for her body to be free from suffering cancer’s wicked torments and even greater joy for her soul that found its resting place in heaven.
Little did I know that just over three years later, on January 18, 2023, I’d look straight into the eyes of my dying infant daughter whose every cell had been plagued with another life-limiter: an extra copy of the 18th chromosome. Trisomy 18. I was captured again by the sacredness of this life event as I watched breaths take on the same appearance as my mom’s had. The stethoscope confirmed her end with us. Like my mother’s voice, the sound of her fluttering heartbeat would only become a memory collected by a music therapist at the hospital, encased in a tiny sound recorder. Her body became cold and lifeless. The joints that had once been so stiff were now limp.
This time, the face I gazed upon was not the one who held me in her womb, but the one I held in mine. I had cradled her in my arms. Caressed her face. Spent time skin to skin. I had done the best I could to give her the best, brief life she could have on this earth.
I’ve reflected on the time my mom and I shared our sacred last conversation, and wonder if she had similar thoughts that I had as I watched MonaJean die. “I held this precious daughter of mine in my womb.”
Death is a terrible enemy, particularly for those of us who must continue on the journey without the people who so profoundly shaped us. But for those who have received what Jesus so freely offers, when God calls us, it is a sweet welcome and release from life’s tight grip on suffering, pain, and sorrow. We can worship even in the face of death.
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’” John 11:25-26
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