On January 19, 1985 my father died. As an “exchange” student in Trenton, New Jersey I found myself many miles away from the small island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. While I was buying a comforter and blanket, in an effort to prepare for a winter the likes of which I had not experienced in 5 years, my family was trying to reach me. There were no cell phones then. When the academic dean finally got a hold of me it was to tell me, as compassionately as possible, my dad was gone and my family wanted me back home. I’d been in Trenton exactly one week. I thanked God for preparing me. Somehow, when I said goodbye to my dad at the airport on January 12th I knew it would be the last goodbye. Don’t ask me how I knew; I just knew. That was a miracle. Immediately following the inhumation, I returned to the states to finish my last semester. All I prayed from that moment on was that God would grant me the gift to physically be there when my mother’s time came.
My mother’s physical body succumbed on August 02, 1999 in our home, the home she shared with my husband and sons, in her own bed, with the smell of apple pie in the air and with only me in the room. It was 3:30 in the afternoon. But I knew that my mother’s soul, the essence of who she was had departed earlier that day, precisely 12 hours before. How do I know? Because I felt the presence of Jesus come to take her home and, while 2 other people slept on the floor at the foot of the bed, I alone was awake and I alone witnessed my mother walk into the loving embrace of Jesus. Some may say I was hallucinating or dreaming but it was no hallucination, it was no dream. It was an answer to a 14 year old prayer. Not only did I witness my mother’s last, peaceful breath; not only did I kiss her warm cheeks and forehead for the last time; not only did I get to whisper: “I love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living my mommy you’ll be.”(1) I also got to say goodbye, hug her goodbye and bid her “fare well.” Miracles come in many ways we simply need to be open to receive them. My mother’s life was a witness to what it means to be a follower of Christ. In her death, I was granted the blessing to witness how someone who has “fought the good fight … finished the race … kept the faith” is received into the kingdom. I pray that for me; I pray that for you too.
(1) From "Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch, published by Firefly Books of Buffalo in 1985.
Prayer: Dear Lord, open our hearts so we are ready to receive your miracles. Strengthen our faith so we can receive, by your grace, the crown of righteousness. Amen.
Prayer Concern: families who must travel to be together in times of trial.
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