A Tuesday in August

It was a Tuesday, a beautiful, sunny morning in August, and I was waking up in a hotel room in Lapeer, Michigan. I’d spent the first 29 years of my life in that town, but now I felt like an outsider, just visiting from North Carolina. I was not exactly on vacation, although we do vacation there annually. No, although My Awesome Husband Greg had taken time off from work to be with me, this was not a family vacation. We were in town for my sister’s funeral.

Now, ten months later, those words, “my sister’s funeral,” still do not ring true. There’s something wrong. There should not have been a funeral for my sister last summer. Missy should still be here. I just can’t shake the feeling that this time, God got it wrong.

Melissa had a great love of God, and always trusted her life to him. She was quick to say, “God’s will,” but I think we were all pretty certain that God planned to keep her around a little longer. After all, she had willingly devoted her life to raising her son, who has autism. She had, with God’s help, done an amazing job, but there was still plenty to do. All of us love Alex, but no one can fill his mother's shoes. Plus, her daughter, Avery, was just entering her second year of college. Missy had home schooled Avery until 8th grade, and could not have been prouder when Ave graduated the previous summer as valedictorian of her high school class. Surely Avery was too young to lose her mother. No, my sister's cancer was just something our family was going to have to get through. God would give us what we needed, as he always does, and then everything would be all right.

I was at the hospital the day the team that handles end-of-life planning came to talk. The doctor calmly outlined the bleakness of Melissa’s situation as he saw it, then paused to ask what her plans were. She simply said, “To get better and go home so I can finish raising my children.” The doctor affirmed that that was a good goal, but that all of the tests they’d performed seemed to indicate a different outcome. Missy said, “Don’t try to take away my hope. Where is God in all of this?”

I saw clear evidence that my sister was leaving us, as she lay in that bed, trapped in a hard back brace that completely imprisoned her from hip to neck, screwed on so it couldn’t be removed. She was unable to keep down the tiniest bite of food, and rated her pain – only when asked -- as a “five” when she had just been given the maximum dose of morphine, and “ten” the rest of the time.

When I’m mindful, I trust God’s will. I believe his ways are good, and that we are not meant to understand, but to simply trust. But I was having a very difficult time reconciling a merciful, loving God with seeing my baby sister in so much pain. Surely she would be well again. This could not be what God wanted. So, despite all evidence to the contrary, I believed Missy when she softly said, “This is not the end. I’m going to get through this.”

I know that what I’m going through now is part of God’s plan. It was arrogant to think we could know his ways. I know that God forgives us for questioning him -- it's allowed. I can see, just a little, that his ways are good. Alex has a different life now, without his mother. Because she is gone, he has a new, closer relationship with his dad. He is sad, of course, but he has such an amazing way of communicating his feelings. He has a pure faith in God, and he feels his mother is still watching over him. I never end a conversation with him that I don’t feel like there is hope for this world.

Things are different for the rest of us, too. I think I speak for my sisters, Bev and Karen, and my brothers, Mark and Jason, when I say that not a day goes by that we don't see her face and hear her voice in our hearts, and wish for one more hug. We will be okay, but it will take more time. I know that when we travel to Michigan this summer (for a much happier occasion – our 45th high school reunion), I will remember that Tuesday morning last summer. I will go to Missy’s house, and I will hug her kids, and I know that in all the things she loved -- her family, her animals, her flowers -- I will find Missy there, too.

Note: All of the photos in this post were taken at Missy's house during various summer trips. My Awesome Husband Greg gets credit for capturing the beautiful sunflower in Missy's garden.