Our contributor today has a touching Tempest Tale of loss…and hope.
THE MORNING MY WORLD CHANGED
by Annie
The phone is ringing.
My husband and I wake up and look at each other, then at the clock.
7:30.
I look at my phone. The call is from home.
“Hello?”
“Hi Annie.” My sister-in-law is sobbing, “I think Mom just died.”
“What do you mean Mom died?” My husband sits sharply in bed as my mind starts racing. Thinks Mom died?? What does that mean?
“Is Dad there?”
“Yes.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Sure.” There is a pause.
“Hi Annie.” My Dad’s voice is tight, choked.
“Is it true?”
“Yes, it’s true. Your mother is not in any pain anymore.” His voice cracks as he starts crying right on the phone.
My mind reels, stunned and disbelieving. My heart has not comprehended anything and is mercifully silent.
My thoughts instantly fly to my little brother. He’s just 16 and watching all of this through child eyes. He needs me.
“Is Jonathan there?”
“Yes, he’s right here.”
“Hi Annie.” Jonathan too is sobbing.
“Hi Jonathan. I love you.” It is all I can manage. So many things are crowding in my heart now. What he sees, what he feels; a son, still at home without a Mother. We, his older siblings, have always been like little parents to him. Now, more than ever, he needs us…yet somehow, words won’t come.
I don’t remember too many details after that. Somehow I hung up the phone. Ben had been holding on to me, and I told him matter-of-factly that Mom had died. We held each other, and I’m pretty sure he prayed over me. I called in to work…really the morning was a blur.
I do remember sitting on the floor of our apartment, mentally sorting through what was happening. As the realization of it set in, I felt a chasm, a great hole open up right through the middle of our lives. Like a house with the middle taken out. My life without my Mom in it, was a reality I could never have imagined.
In the hours and days and months and years that followed (it has been almost 3 1/2 years since she died) my life changed drastically. Not my external life – much has stayed the same – but my internal life. The life that I had up until September 10, 2005 was irrevocably changed. It didn’t matter how much I wanted the life that was, or how hard the change was that came with it, my life would never be the same.
My Dad remarried again, a year and a half later. As crazy as it seems, this was somehow harder for us (the kids) than even losing Mom. Accepting the loss of a Mother who had always been there was hard. Accepting the presence of someone who had never been there seemed impossible.
Yet life does go on. Judy and her family have become a piece of our lives, little bit by little bit, and we all are carried along in the hope, healing, and love that we have in Christ.
So how did we weather this storm? How did I? Well, to tell the truth, I still feel the effects of it. The waves get a little farther apart, but never less painful. What gets me through? That great big picture of heaven. No more separation, no more tears, no more pain, no more sin, no more los …and on that day, all these little days and big storms will seem like just a blink in time. I also know that Mom didn’t die that day–since death for us is impossible. She simply changed homes. She is still alive–very much so–more alive than she ever was here on earth.
I and my family are a testimony to the truth of the Scriptures: that the Holy Spirit really does comfort us in our grief, that we do not mourn as those who have no hope, and that it is fixing our eyes on eternal things which carries us through the storms of this life.
2 Corinthians 4, 5
16 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
1 For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
1 Thessalonians 4
13 we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
2 Corinthians 1
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
4 who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
