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It was shortly before dawn when I suddenly surrendered to my emotions as I melted to the floor under the weight of the moment. I began to weep openly while reminding myself that I had literally written "The Book" documenting my deepest lows. Yet I couldn’t recall a single scene it described, this one had eclipsed them all.
My tear-filled eyes moved upward to the hospital bed I had collapsed beside in the front bedroom of my home. I saw the profile of my frail, chemo ridden, radiation endured mother. She was lying at an angle as her lungs filled with fluid and had shortly before pierced my heart with her desperate plea, "Please don’t let me die." Within days I stood beside her grave. I had done my best, but God saw things another way.
She had been a priority in my life for years. We had set in many doctors’ offices and stood in many prayer lines together. We had logged more miles than a truck driver in search of a cure. Her breast cancer had spread to her lungs in ‘99, the day after Thanksgiving, 2002, a scan revealed it to have invaded her brain. On this night, less than three months later, I realized I had never seen a crisis without the one who was in the bed. Now it was my turn to see her through. I walked her to the gate, but that was as far as we could go together.
I kept telling myself that I would be okay. I had a project or two on hold that could keep me busy. I soon realized I was wrong. Her pleading eyes haunted me in the night. The reoccurring dream that I was dying her death, the constant picture etched in the back of my mind of her last suffering moments. To have it all happen to such a wonderful mother. Bouncing back wasn’t an easy thing to do.
I retreated into a dark place, somewhere I had never been before. Then I began to justify my emotions by conceding that no one could have overcome such trauma. No one expected things to be business as usual. I finally bottomed out and found my face cupped in my husband, David’s, hand as he stood nose to nose with me to explain in a firm but gentle way, "We are strong people, we will survive this." Crying uncontrollably I begged, "But please don’t let me die like my Mother." "You’re not dying." He answered. His expression sobered me and began to soak in as the evening progressed. I guess he was right, I wasn’t dying.
The following weekend we had begun to watch a rented movie before going to bed. The opening credits were rolling when I was suddenly taken by surprise. Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, the Lord spoke to me, "Who do you say that I am?" I was caught off guard and didn’t know how to answer the question. I knew He didn’t want Peter’s answer. Stunned and dazed, I ignored Him, but continued to ponder what I had been asked. About three days later the fog began to lift. Only then did I know the magnitude of despair that had clouded my mind.
While listening to a taped conversation of a friend and Mother talking about Heaven, I realized I had heard her speak of it all my life, but at that moment, for her it wasn’t a story anymore. I wrote my first song since her death. I knew I was springing back when I had the will to overcome the obstacles I did to get the actual recording of Mother’s voice on the track. The recording was appropriately completed by Mother’s Day.
A couple of weeks later I woke up one morning with her on my mind. I would have loved to pick up the phone and called my mother. I paused for a moment and asked myself what that conversation would be if I could speak to her one more time. I immediately answered my own question. "We would talk about who He is," I thought. "I’d tell her that who He was to her. . . that’s who He is to me."
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