A Moment of Grace

My mother claimed her heavenly reward just short of two weeks ago.

I received a call from the charge nurse at her nursing facility at about 4am. 

“Is this Royce? This is “Charlotte” at the Rohr Home. I just checked on your mom, and found her unresponsive. You needn’t hurry, but don’t linger either. Please c’mon up here when you can.”

So much like the call I received from the same facility four years earlier when my father, as they say, shuffled off this mortal coil. As many times as it happens, however, I don’t believe anyone can properly prepare themselves for a call like this. (Strangely enough, my wife and I were watching, “The Green Mile” when daddy walked his own green mile).

My wife and I quickly dressed, drove the ten or twelve minutes to the skilled nursing facility in which my mother had lived the past two years, walked the twenty yards from our car to the door, strode down the long hallway, and stepped into a very familiar room. Room 24.

My mother had become progressively confined to her bed the past six months. Having experienced several hospital stays since being admitted to the facility, she participated in physical and occupational rehabilitation on a recurring basis.

I have often said, “Geriatric Rehab will either cure you or kill you.”

My dad walked the length of both hallways in this same nursing facility the last day of his life, his own personal record; (or “PR” as track and field adherents are prone to abbreviate the term). In spite of his declining physiology, he’d somehow summoned up the effort required to accomplish what for him, at this stage, was a Herculian effort.

I hadn’t thought of the irony of it all ‘til this very moment. But what would soon transpire with my mother would be as strange, or stranger than the scenario which I just described.

As we walked into my mother’s room, she was as pale as I had ever seen her. Her head was resting on the pillow, while her respirations came fast and shallow. Thirty breaths a minute. And that “hard to listen to” rattle emanated from her throat. I would spare you the adjectives, except the adjectives give you some understanding of how, seemingly, close to death she found herself at that moment.

Not having been able to reach my youngest brother, I soon excused myself, proceeded to my car, and drove to his house; a distance of perhaps 3 miles. Having rang his bell, and made him aware of the criticalness of the situation, I made my way back to the nursing facility.

As I retraced those familiar steps I had taken 2-3 times a week over the course of the past two years, I passed the nurses station. Making eye contact with the R.N., I asked,

“Has there been any change?” (I am not the sort who enjoys surprises).

Charlotte smiled what seemed a winsome smile, and with a twinkle in her eyes replied,

“Well, yes!”

The smile and the twinkle gave her away. The death angel could not have beckoned mama home. And yet, what could be the import of her exclamation?

There’s a one liner from an old movie which, with a slight variation, says it better than I ever could.

“She’s back!”

For as I walked into Room 24, my wife and sister (and) …mother greeted me! Well, to imply the third of the three exhibited such an expression might be an exaggeration. And yet, as I gazed towards my mom, I noticed a profound change had overtaken her.

Her eyes were open, she was altogether “there there,” and she was suddenly capable of speaking! A woman who only minutes earlier was unresponsive, and whose respiration was off the charts!

They say that the sense of hearing is the last thing to go. And as I lingered by my mother’s bed, I asked. (I just had to know).

“Mama, we thought you were about to catch the last train out a while ago. Did you hear me telling you ‘it’s okay to go?’ And did you hear me singing to you?”

With this, my mother summoned up an audible whisper, and replied,

“No, I didn’t hear you.”

At the same time, she exhibited absolutely no fear of whatever spiritual being had previously visited with her, and seemingly summoned her out of this world; (though she never broached the subject).

In short order my youngest brother and his fiancé arrived, and as they walked into my mother’s periphery, her eyes widened a bit, and she managed a bit more volume.

“Well, hello!”

She was obviously glad to see her “baby boy.”

Before many minutes had passed, slumber overtook my mother; minus the horrendous symptoms which we’d observed an hour earlier. We all surmised the worst was past, and that mama would be with us a bit longer. All, I might say, except my wife. Some years before she had worked as a hall nurse in this same unit. It seems she “knew the drill.”

As we made our way home, for we were all determined to finish doing what my mother was doing at the moment, Jean warned me.

“Don’t expect your mom to pull out of this. She may go today or tomorrow. What you just witnessed is odd, but it isn’t absolutely rare. I’ve seen it happen before; in my work on that facility, and previously in my time at hospice.”

Two hours after we laid our heads on our pillows,

…our phone rang (again).

And without any attempt at sacrilege, the words to that old song express it well,

… Second verse, same as the first

“Your mother is unresponsive. Her respiration is coming fast and furious. Please come.”

We, as a family, had been granted a moment of grace in which our comatose, unresponsive mother, accompanied by all those morbid symptoms, awakened from what seemed almost imminent death, and communed with her family a final time.

A moment of grace. How could one characterize it any differently?

Later that afternoon my mother finally yielded herself to the One who loved her, and gave Himself for her.

I think it speaks volumes about the constitution of my father that he summoned up the wherewithal to set his own personal distance record; on his last day this side of eternity. 

I think it speaks volumes about the constitution of my mother, a woman who had experienced just short of 50 (count ‘em, 50) minor to major maladies, since she’d maintained residence in that facility, but in all of it, she somehow summoned up the wherewithal to battle her way out of what seemed almost certain death; to give each of us the momentary gift of her presence.

Who can deny it? 

I come from good stock.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary. Vol. 35. Copyright pending

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