Gone From My Sight

I’m starting a series on my YouTube channel called Sink Reflections. My first video in the series was going to be posted this past Sunday but plans suddenly and drastically changed. My mom passed away this past week, 2 1/2 years after being diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Quoting from Google, “ALS is a nervous system disease that weakens the muscles and impacts physical function. Nerve cells break down, which reduces functionality in the muscles they supply. The cause is unknown. The main symptom is muscle weakness. Medication and therapy can slow ALS and reduce discomfort, but there is no cure.” What usually takes ALS patients is respitory failure, which was the case with my mom. She chose not to be put on a feeding tube or respirator and opted to let the disease take her naturally.

My dad called me Monday morning to tell me she had some trouble breathing the night before. She’s had some episodes in the past with her breathing but had bounced back a bit each time and since my dad didn’t sound panicked I thought this was probably just another one of those episodes. I told him to keep me posted. I already had plans to bring my daughter and son down the next day for a little visit. That evening he texted me to “come now”.

My husband had just gotten home. He got Lucy and me packed up and sent on our way and he went to pick my son from youth group to bring him down right behind me.

When I got to my parents’ my mom looked like she was sleeping but she was fully aware of what was going on around her. She could hear everything. If you spoke to her she would open her eyes and respond weakly. She spoke some and would pop into our conversations here and there. I sat next to her and helped her hold Lucy. I put Lucy in the crook of her arm and held my mom’s hand supporting her. She tried to talk to Lucy a little bit in between falling in and out of sleep. My son Daniel read from the Psalms to her.

A friend was coming to spend the night with her and my dad and after a while we decided to head home and I would come back in the morning. I squeezed my mom’s hand and told her I loved her, my face close to hers. She opened her eyes and told me she loved me too. I told her I would be back in the morning and she gave a little nod.

We went home and I got a little sleep. The next morning I went back with Lucy and Daniel. Luke arrived a little later after running some errands for work. My brother and his family had arrived from Montana very early that morning, they had driven through the night. My mom’s sister was on her way from Colorado and would arrive that afternoon.

We all just hung out and visited quietly keeping an eye on her, taking turns giving her morphine and small syringes of water when she asked. I was glad she was able to hear we were all there with her. I put Lucy on the bed next to her for her naps and they napped together, my mom fully aware Lucy was there. When Lucy was awake Daniel and her cousins played with her while she babbled happily away next to my mom. At one point Lucy started crying and my mom quickly opened her eyes and looked towards her, worried. I reassured her she was ok just starting to get hungry. I fed her there right beside my mom.

My aunt arrived that afternoon and I breathed a sigh of relief. I needed her there almost as much as my mom did. We stayed into the evening again then decided to make the hour trip back home to try and get some sleep. I told my aunt and brother to text or call if anything changed.

We drove the hour back home and as we were getting settled in bed my brother texted me to come back and shortly after that my aunt did as well. We quickly decided Luke would stay home with Lucy and Daniel and just I would go.

I quickly got dressed, threw together a small bag and made the hour drive back down. When I arrived my dad, aunt, brother and sister-in-law were all in the room around my mom. Things had changed a lot in the three hours I had been gone.

We all sat by her. I told her I was there and and sat next to her with my hand on her arm for a bit. Eventually we all decided to try and get a little sleep. My aunt slept on the couch next to my mom and my sister-in-law in the chair next to her. I laid down on a bed in the next room. Amazingly, I did fall asleep for almost two hours and was woken up by my sister-in-law to come.

Thirty minutes later, at 2:21am on June 12th, my mom took her last breath and walked into the presence of Jesus. Her struggle was finally over.

It’s hard to imagine you can feel immense relief and immense pain all at the same time. But anyone who has said goodbye to a loved one in this way knows exactly what I mean. The weight of their suffering and struggle is lifted but the gaping chasm of their absence is felt deeply.

I miss my mom and it hurts. But clinging to God and my hope in Him takes away some of the sting. Holding my sweet, little Lucy and feeling the depth of my love for her and knowing my mom felt the same for me brings me comfort. Somehow it makes me feel close to my mom even in her absence.

There’s so much more to reflect on but that will be for days to come…

Before my mom passed the hospice nurse gave us a little blue book called Gone From My Sight. I found this book immensely helpful. In this book is a poem by Henry Van Dyke.

Gone From My Sight

by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore

A ship at my side spreads her white

sails to the morning breeze and starts

for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until at length

she hangs like a speck of white cloud

just where the sea and sky come

to mingle with each other

Then, someone at my side says:

“There, she is gone!”

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull

and spar as when she left my side

and she is just as able to bear her

load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says “There, she is gone!”

There are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:

“Here she comes!”

And that is dying…