My Life - For What It's Worth: Angels

Thursday, July 14, 2022

My Mama Met Jesus Today

I cover my mother’s face with kisses for the last time and quietly close the hospital room door. Everyone else has left.

The reality of it all settles like thick molasses all over my soul. I feel my heart explode into a million pieces as fat hot tears flood down my face, splatter onto the tile floor and roll away. My sweet, sassy, funny mama is gone. My best friend. I don't know how to live life without her.

I feel grief so overwhelming that I can barely stand. I close my eyes for a minute and simply lift my face to heaven and wonder how to live without my mama.

Somehow, I manage to put one foot in front of the other and start down the long corridor of the ICU toward home. I am walking in quicksand.

I see her down the hallway. Standing erect, large strong hands clasped in front of her. She is dressed in a simple, short sleeved, brown tweed dress, beige low-heeled pumps and a single strand of pearls. Her closely cropped reddish hair accents a face that is the color of a caramel latte, rich and creamy, with full lips painted in red and dark sparkling eyes. She is tall with long arms and an ample bosom.

She is watching me expectantly as I slowly make my way toward that end of the hall. My weeping doesn’t seem to surprise or embarrass her and my tears do not stop.

Just as I step right in front of her, she looks at me, eyes filled with compassion, and she says softly, “God is still good.”

I keep walking. Trying to understand how she can say that when He just took away my mama.

I round the corner toward the elevator just out of her sight. Suddenly, I stop and whirl around, running back to the stranger who thinks that God is STILL good. I fall into her arms and she catches me. Her strong and soft body envelopes me and I realize she is quite literally holding me up. She smells like warm honey and butter and all that I can think is that I want my mama. I want my mama.

She holds me close and I bury my face into her neck and she immediately starts to pray. “Father, I don’t know her circumstances, but you do and I ask for grace and peace for her. For mercy and rest…”

I don’t hear all of her prayer, but I feel it. I am safe and comforted in her arms and I immediately know that she has held many broken souls. She always will.

She gently but firmly pulls me away from her soft body, looks deep into my swollen red eyes and says, “Everything will be ok. He is faithful.”

I nod my understanding of what she just said, stand up taller and straighter than before and head toward home.

I think of an old hymn that seems to fit just right….

We are standing on Holy Ground
And I know that there are angels
All around
Let us praise Jesus now
We are standing in his presence
On Holy Ground