A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven

Today as I flounder about the house, restless, unable to settle on any one of a thousand things that need to be done, I can only think of the one thing that's on my mind and in my heart: My little Mother-in-law. She is 90, and usually in robust health, but now lies propped in a hospital bed, looking not altogether like the sprightly little woman I've grown to care for over the last thirty years. She wants to die; it was her choice to pull the IVs; she wants to "go see Dad". I can understand her wishes, and we are trying to uphold her choices. After sitting with her these last few weeks and reminiscing about the good (and bad) times she had as a girl, and, of course we have talked about the men in her life: her beloved "Sabie" and her two boys. It is getting harder and harder for me to "let her go". We have become closer in these last two weeks than we have in the last thirty! And her boys have had to learn to talk to each other and respect each other's differences, even though it's still an on-going project. I think now I may understand the answer to Mom Geis' remark the other night. She said, "I've tried to live a good life, and be good to others....why does He leave me lying here so long? Why won't He take me?" I think the answer to her query is that He has left her here to minister to US, her family, for a while longer....until we get ourselves straightened out a bit more. She is a wealth of knowledge, and seems to teach us something new each time we take our turn sitting with her. She and I talk gardening, and flowers; critters and people: mostly family and friends that have been so good to her over the years. It's interesting to observe the friends and family members who sit their "death watch" and read or do needlework and have nothing in the world to say or visit with this little woman. They sit for hour after hour with no interaction, no exchange of love, or knowledge; no healing human touch passes between them! Amazing, this lack of Christian love!

She and I hardly come up for air, as we talk and talk...and laugh and touch each others hand or cheek and gaze into each others eyes! Mom Geis looks intently at me; for the world, trying to memorize my every feature; telling me of my softest skin, and perfect lips.....right down to telling me of her love of the color of my lipstick! We are becoming friends in these, her last hours. I feel sorry for the others, who will never know her THIS WELL; to know her every dream, (to sky-dive from high above!!), and her dissappointments, (the favoritism that was perceived between she and her sister) and the estrangement between she and her eldest son, that has hurt her heart more than anything in her life.

When we die, most of us are never allowed these precious moments to amend the past hurts, to say our thanks. The Lord has given my little Mother in law these last weeks to tell us of her love. What a blessing and a gift.

I am thankful. And sad, today, here on the ranch.