Sometime in the summer of 2008 (it all seems such a blur now), I received the difficult news that my mom, the rock of our family, had lung cancer. It seemed so unfair. She wasn't a smoker nor did she grow up in a household that was. So how then does a nagging cough turn into such a diagnosis?
My family was thankful when doctors assured us that surgery would remove it all and chemotherapy would be a preventive measure to reduce the chances of reoccurrence. But just three months following surgery -- during Christmas week, Mom's favorite time of the year -- a new scan would reveal a much darker diagnosis: the cancer, thought to be fully removed, had reappeared -- this time in both lungs. From stage 1 we thought had been remedied, to stage 4 for which there was no cure. The news pierced our hearts and minds as my siblings and I sobbed in disbelief. No! How could this be? We were devastated, shocked, and numb.
Yet there sat my mom -- hearing news that would all too soon take her life -- giving comfort and reassurance to her children, with a smile and a promise that
'it'll be okay.'
Such was the way my mother, Sylvia Joy, lived her life. For all of my growing up years, she was a single mom of six children, the youngest two twins. We were five girls and one boy loved by a woman whose life philosophy was as simple as her middle name: Joy. Birthdays, holidays, winter, summer, spring, and fall celebrated with creativity and laughter and all the fanfare a shoe-string budget could afford.
My mom did not have an easy life. As you can imagine, raising six kids on her own was a challenge all to itself. Add to that other life experiences that could have -- and perhaps should have -- robbed her of joy. And now a diagnosis of a cancer that seemed so senseless and unfair, certainly should have sealed the deal. How can anybody be joyful through cancer? Mom found a way.
I admit I often wanted to sit and cry with her and hate on this disease -- unleashing a tirade on somebody or something to get even for what she was going through. But that was never her desire. It just wasn't her way.
Many people wondered where her source of joy came from -- and she was always eager to let them know:
it was her faith. Faith in a God that was by her side through every storm of her life. Faith modeled for her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren -- in hopes they too would live accordingly. She repeatedly told others that her grandson Gabe reminded her of Matthew 6 scripture that said:
'who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life' -- and she clung to those words throughout her battle with terminal cancer -- often saying, "
God knows the exact length of my time on earth -- and I'm not going to add or subtract one minute to his timing by worrying about it."
That was Mom. She chose joy over worry. She refused to think about death and instead made the most of each day she had to live. And she put her faith in a God she knew would take care of her.
When she passed, wonderfully surrounded by family, prayers, and singing of hymns, we did the usual searching for what we wanted her to wear in the casket that truly represented her best. For many years she wore a watch pendant necklace. She always had that thing on. But a few months before she died, the battery gave out on it and she didn't get a chance to replace it. So my sister searched her jewelry drawer so we could include it with what she would wear for the funeral.
When she found it, she was shocked to see that the clock had stopped at 12:59.....the exact time of our mom's passing. (Turns out, a mother is always right.)
Some may call it coincidence. I prefer to call it a 'God-wink' -- evidence that our mom, his faithful, joyful servant, is with him now. It was a final, memorable message -- like only moms can do -- to encourage us to live by faith. The faith she believed in and clung to in her most difficult days of cancer was the same faith that was her rock in raising six young children on her own. It was real. It was lived. It was her legacy -- an inheritance passed on to her family worth more than gold.
Live by faith. Three simple words lived to the fullest by one simple, yet remarkable woman: my mom.
Thanks Mom.
"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, or what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"
Matthew 6: 25-27 (NIV)