Amazing Pastoral Visit

Mom. How I wish you were back to being you. I miss you. I keep wanting to call you up and chat on the phone, but you are not taking calls. I used to send you a card everyday to cheer you up until you told me to stop. Then you would accept emails once in awhile, but even those are now taboo. I want to call you on the phone and yell at you. Come back. Stop trying to die. Don't check out. I need you. I know you are having a hard time with Dad gone and all, but your kids need you here. Please let us connect with you. Please.

When we shared that with the pastor who used to serve with Dad at the little log cabin church in Lake George, he was deeply moved. He has taken a church in Ohio and we thought it so kind that he returned for Dad's services. But what he just did went way beyond duty or loyalty straight to love. He set aside his current responsibilities to drive all the way to Tennessee for one day's worth of sitting with Mom. What an amazing sacrifice on his part. How we appreciate his loving action. What an amazing man.

Even better, he talked with Mom to say just what we all want and need her to know. That she is not dead and not likely to die any time soon. That we treasure her and want her to continue to be part of our lives, interested in what we are doing, willing to chat on the phone or at least read our emails. He was able to tell Mom that God has not called her home no matter how much she wants to go there. And he was very caring in how he spoke with Mom.

Mom, I hope you heard him. Even if you don't talk with me as a result, if it puts you in a better place, we will all be happy. Dear Mom, you have loved us for so long through all the good and bad times. We have made cookies together, snuggled babies together (mine and yours), shared Christmases, built houses, taken vacations, slept in tents together and worked out homework assignments between the two of us. We pulled weeds side by side and shopped sales, coupons in hand, bargain hunters extraordinaire. We took the same floral arranging class at TSTI. We have worshiped in the same pew, sung the same hymns and read the same devotions together. We are in pictures together.

Now suddenly you have ended our relationship without so much as a by-your-leave. I hurt for you. I imagine how filled with pain you are, how angry, how miserable, how lost. But I am lost too, for I have been stripped of both father and mother in one fell swoop. Please come back. You are not so close to Jordan that you can't turn around to chat. Please be willing to talk to me of your pain. Let me be the one who does the listening for a change, while you are the one distraught. Let me hug you and kiss away tears you have not yet cried in some small gesture to assuage your grief.

We await your return, Mom. I sure hope the pastor did not waste his time coming to minister to you. Allow us to love you because that is what we want and that is what you need. Heart healing. Not an easy thing. But you can do it Mom. Please try.