Well, perhaps it’s time to give you a bit of an update
since Mom died and went to her heavenly home.
I will share my perspective as Mom’s daughter. I’m
sure other people in Mom’s life would have different stories to share, but this
is my story.
First of all, let me share that losing Mom was a lot
harder than I expected and also had a lot more joy. Strange though it may be,
when Mom died, I was filled with joy. Mom and I talked a lot about heaven in
the last years, months, weeks and days of her life. We read books about heaven,
and talked about them. What would it be like in heaven? And we made plans. One
of the things Mom was looking forward to most was jumping in the river of life.
She longed for the day when the tubes would be gone from her body, and she
could take a bath and splash around and not be inhibited by them. And she said,
“When I get there, Jesus is going to give me a hug and wipe away all my tears
and all my sorrow.”
As she grew weaker, her illness was harder to take. I
remember sitting with Dad and Mom one day, and she said, “These legs don’t work
so well anymore. This body isn’t so good anymore.” Shortly after that, she had
to use a walker in the house, and as she weakened more, we had to wheel her on
it to the bathroom, and finally, Dad had to carry her.
I loved watching the tender care my Dad gave my Mom. At
the beginning of Mom’s illness, he was a farmer, with grease stained hands.
During the last weeks of Mom’s life, I watched those same impossibly large
fingers manage the clips on Mom’s peritoneal drain, tenderly holding her hand
as he helped her be more comfortable. He boldly learned to cook, vacuum the way
Mom liked, and administer needles. They fit together like this:
Two trees, that from a distance look like one tree.
Through their marriage, Mom and Dad grew together, compensating for each other’s
weaknesses and enjoying each other’s strengths, so they looked like one unit to
other people. Bertina. You couldn’t imagine one without the other.
Those days of Mom’s weakness were very sad days. We
cried a lot. I spent as much time as I could there, often sleeping over, but I
was very grateful Aunt Wilma was able to be there every day to help Mom and Dad.
She rubbed cream into Mom’s flaking, swollen feet (a symptom of Mom’s slowing
body). When Mom was uncomfortable, the three of us scurried around, finding
meds, pillows, different clothes, anything that would make her more
comfortable. We cried a lot, and talked about things we wouldn’t have chosen. I
wrote Mom’s obituary. Aunt Wilma picked out Mom’s clothes for the casket. Dad
struggled to learn how to manage the household finances, which had always been Mom’s
job. We shielded Mom from too much stimulation as she withdrew from
relationships and people and turned her gaze to heaven. No, she didn’t want to
hear about my kids’ antics anymore, and I cried about this with Aunt Wilma and Dad,
and together we turned our gaze with her to heaven.
During this time, I asked her, “Mom, I’m so sad you
are so sick and have to suffer like this. I just wish Jesus would take you
home.” And she said, with tears, “I know, but God says, ‘I know the plans I
have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm, to heal and restore.’ And if
God wants me here right now, he has a plan, and I am determined to be here to
complete what he has for me.” I could
only stare at her, and hope that my faith would catch up to hers someday.
And then the day came. Dad called me early in the
morning, and I drove the hour and a half drive, praying for Mom, praying I
would be there in time. Passing their tree on the way. The afternoon before, I’d been with her, and I’d said
good bye before I left. I said, “Mom, I need to go see my family, but if you
need to go to Jesus while I am away, you just go to him. You go jump in the
river.” She whispered back, “Make sure there’s a party.”
In the moments as she lay dying, her breaths becoming
more irregular and ragged, we prayed her into the kingdom of heaven. And I know
in my heart that she leapt from her broken body into the arms of Jesus. I have
no way to prove this; I just know it to be true.
At the funeral, we cried through a whole box of
Kleenexes, but I was also amazed at the blazing joy that flooded my heart. Mom’s
journey was done, and she had endured to the end. Her suffering was done and
she was safe with Jesus, whole and happy.
For me, I lost my Mom. But for Dad, he lost his wife.
I don’t think anything can prepare you for the devastation of losing a spouse.
Though we grieved Mom during the four years of her illness, Dad was surprised
to discover that he wasn’t prepared for the reality of life without Mom. Even
though she’d been sick, she’d still been with him. In the days after Mom’s
funeral, Dad cried every time I talked to him on Skype. I don’t know about you,
but seeing my Dad cry is not high on my list of good times. He struggled with
overwhelming grief and crushing loneliness. Computer problems or figuring out
financial things totally unglued him, as those were Mom’s area of expertise. He
was lost and broken without Mom.
So I went to spend a few days with Dad, to be with him
and help him with some paperwork. There is lots of paperwork that must be
completed when someone dies, and it was wearing Dad down to tell people again
and again that “Tina Visscher is deceased.” Dad wasn’t doing well when I was
there. It was very difficult for me to see him like that. He broke down and
cried when we had soup. We went to visit friends, and he broke down and couldn’t
talk. He cried when we cleaned the dishes, when he bragged that he’d vacuumed,
when we filled out paperwork. We visited
Aunt Sadie and Uncle Henry, and we carried the conversation while he cried
beside me on the couch. And then I cried because I was helpless to take away
his pain. I could only listen and cry with him.
On my way home from Dad’s house, I passed the tree,
the tree I always saw as being a picture of
Mom and Dad and their great marriage. Today it looked like this:
Mom was gone, and Dad was struggling. Difficult,
difficult days. I cried for my own loss, but I also cried for Dad. He had had a
great marriage, and he lost his companion and friend and wife. The grief was agonizing,
and he was struggling to go on.
One who understood was Aunt Wilma. When Mom died, she
lost her sister. But she also understood what it meant to lose a spouse. Her
husband, Uncle Paul and her son, Jeremy, were killed in a car accident 17 years
ago. Dad asked her how to cope, and they talked, and she grieved with him.
And then, surprise of surprises, there grew something
new from the death and devastation and loss. Feelings of friendship and family
blossomed into tenderness, and then bloomed into love. Dad and Aunt Wilma
tentatively began spending time together as more than friends.
On Valentine’s Day, also Dad’s birthday, he asked her to
marry him.
She said yes!
Though not much time has passed since we laid Mom’s
body in the grave, much time has passed for Dad. The suffering and pain of
missing Mom has made time go slowly for him. And in truth, being with Aunt
Wilma doesn’t end his grief or even by-pass it. They are both still grieving,
and as a family, we still talk about Mom and grieve that she isn’t with us. I
was with them shortly after they got engaged, and I missed Mom that night, and
cried. Dad put his arm around my shoulder and cried with me. “I miss her too.”
But he is so happy about this new love with Aunt Wilma, and I am too. For so
many years I prayed for Aunt Wilma, asking God how he was going to turn good
out of Uncle Paul and Jeremy dying. For Aunt Wilma, I think being with Dad is good.
Dad is an amazing man and a gifted husband. In Mom’s illness, he learned much
about being married and loving. And with Aunt Wilma, romantic feelings have
grown, wonder of wonders. Who would have thought that was possible?
And now they work together to form a new marriage. It
won’t be Bertina. It will be a new combination made up of Dad and Aunt Wilma,
something unique, something precious. I pray they will grow together as my
parents did in 41 years of marriage, that Dad and Aunt Wilma will be kind and
sensitive to each other and have fun together. Already, I am blessed to see the
joy in both of them, the fun they have together, the laughter we have as a
family.
I know for some people, this is too soon. A relationship this soon doesn’t fit the mold
of ideal relationships. But it wasn’t ideal for Mom to die, and it wasn’t ideal
for Uncle Paul to die. We don’t live in an ideal world. We live in a broken
world, marred by sin, sickness, and death. I would give anything to have Mom
still here with us, and Uncle Paul and Jeremy. But here we are, without them.
I thought of Mom in heaven, and I wondered what she
would say. I do know that before she died, Dad found Mom crying one day, and he
asked her if she was crying about her illness. She said, “Oh, I’m not crying
for me, I’m crying for you.” She know the difficulty Dad would have missing her
when she died, and she was sad for him. She would have done anything to spare
him the pain of separation. So I think of her in heaven, where there are no
more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, and where people are not married
anymore, as Jesus said. And I have to guess that she would be happy about this.
First of all, she would be happy that Dad is finding some joy and isn’t
drowning in grief. Secondly, I know she prayed for Aunt Wilma often. I think
she would be thrilled for Aunt Wilma that she has found a husband after all
these years. Yes, it is a bit strange that it is Dad, but oh my, what a good husband
he will be. As a sister looking down from heaven, if Mom is allowed to see what
happens here, I think she would be thrilled for both of them.
For me, it is wonderful. I love Aunt Wilma, and she
has always been a close part of our family. She helped me pick out my wedding
dress (long before she had her bridal shop). She cared for my Mom in the most
tender ways, and showed great strength and love in those difficult months. She
is already part of our family.
So, here’s to God’s wisdom, in making a new thing sprout from brokenness, in providing joy even in sorrow. Here’s introducing the
new couple, with a wedding date to follow in October.
Love to you all,
Jeanette
